Fallout 4 - Atomic Beauty
by Captain Literate
Summary: Vault 111 had another survivor, un-noticed as the first made their escape. But cryogenics is an inexact science and there were some... Side effects. Luckily, they may be just what Erin needs to survive and even thrive in the dangers of the Commonwealth. She's nuclear powered; an atomic beauty! Rated M for violence, language, use of drugs and sexual content.
1. Chapter 1 - A Cold Good Morning

It had happened. They had actually done it. Erin hugged herself tightly, as the gate slowly rose in front of the last shell-shocked group of survivors. Nearly half a kilometre overhead, the world was being wiped out. The morning had seemed like any other, for the young college freshman; just a lazy Saturday to catch up on some reading, or maybe visit her friends in Concord… Then the sirens had sounded. She probably would have ignored them, if not for the radio suddenly interrupting itself to announce in no uncertain terms that this was not a drill and that everything she knew was about to be wiped away, as if by the hand of an angry god. All she could do was thank the heavens that she was alive – she and the handful of others from Sanctuary Hills that had made it down. There was even a couple with a baby who were probably more relieved than anyone else. The father seemed to have everything together at least; wasn't he ex-army? It didn't matter anymore, she guessed. Her eyes caught the baby's scared, bemused look and she smiled, waving to it and wishing she could share its childish innocence, only needing the warmth of its mother to know everything would be alright. And maybe it would? After all, Vault-Tec boasted all the time about their state-of-the-art shelters.

"Everyone please step off the elevator and proceed up the stairs in an orderly fashion." Men in the tight vault jump-suits, bearing the number 111 were waiting to greet them, in front of the massive, cog-shaped door to the underground refuge.

"No need to worry folks. We'll get everyone situated in your new home. Vault one-eleven: A better future, underground!" The marketing tagline seemed almost absurd in the wake of what had happened, but who knew; maybe they were right? Certainly, the vault had to be better than the firestorm raging above. Erin straightened her back and stepped forward, just behind the family of three. She and they seemed to be the only ones not in a state of shell-shock. She waited patiently as they were handed their own jumpsuits and then she received hers.

"Uhm…" she spoke up, then realising no-one had heard her soft voice, she cleared her throat and tried again, "E-excuse me? Isn't… Isn't this going to be a bit big for me? She eyed the cheery woman handing out the garments with a familiar sting of slight jealousy. She hadn't really grown much since her 14th birthday. Her mother (please God let her have got to safety in DC) used to say she was just being stretched, ending up as just 5ft1 and scrawny as anything.

"Hmm? Oh, don't you worry ma'am," the rep smiled, flashing her perfect teeth, "Our stylish vault suits are one-size-fits all!"

Erin remained unconvinced, but was too self-conscious to complain and not wanting to hold the line up, hurried into the vault.

* * *

No sooner had she caught up with the family, when a member of the vault security reached out a hand to stop her.

"Just one moment please, miss. That decontamination bank is already full; if you'd just step into this one over here please?"

Erin gave one more glance towards the family and the baby they carried. She hadn't said a word to the parents, but that wasn't unusual… She had no real connection to them and she was never one to speak up… She nodded meekly and turned, taking a last look at the cute baby in its mother's arms.

"Uh…" Erin reached out her arm to the side and pinched at the roll of loose cloth that hung from the sleeve. "I-I don't think it fits."

A white-haired man in a labcoat walked over and inspected her with a frown. "Hmm… That's unfortunate. It seems your frame isn't really suited for our adult-sized suits. I'll just get you a child-size. It shouldn't be a moment."

It wasn't a big deal, Erin supposed, as she changed. A child's suit was a little embarrassing, but she was used to having to buy downsized clothes for her stringy figure and the scientist/doctor/whatever his title was, seemed in a great hurry to get everyone sorted for orientation. She turned and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass of the pod, as he opened it for her. Thin lips; shallow cheeks; dull, limp hair the colour of coal dust - she was no picture, but it was familiar. Erin had long since given up dreams of turning from ugly duckling into beautiful swan and had instead retreated into her books and her computer science studies. The door swung up with the soft hiss of pneumatics and Erin pulled herself up into the pod, sitting back and gulping nervously as the door swung down like the lid of a coffin. What was this uneasy feeling she suddenly had? Why did things seem slightly off..?

"Resident secure," chimed the computerized voice. "Occupant vitals: Normal. Procedure complete in 5. 4..."

Was it suddenly getting really, really cold? The glass in front of her face was frosting over-! Erin struggled to keep her eyes open, but it was impossible. Something was gently but irresistibly tugging her towards a deep, deep sleep.

"3. 2. 1."

Cool, white slumber overwhelmed her.

* * *

Something broke through her lead-limbed weariness. Something harsh and urgent. She was so cold and everything ached. Her vault suit was pinching, too tight to breathe.

"Failure in cryogenic array. All vault residents must vacate immediately."

What? Who was-? Oh, the computer. Cryogenic array? Was she-? Before Erin's mind could even form a complete thought, a sudden hiss came from the seals and with a stiff jerk, the lid of her pod swung up. She stepped forward, but frozen numbness made her limbs stiff and she tumbled forward, spilling onto the floor. She still couldn't breathe-! Everything felt so damn tight! Erin struggled for breath as she reached up, pulling at the collar of her suit. To her shock, every motion of her limbs brought a tearing sound and a small relief in the constricting sensation. Finally, she opened her collar and breathed in deeply, only for a sudden ripping split to reach her ears. Erin gave a small shriek of surprise, as her child's suit split open at the front, finally freeing her to take a deep breath of air. Even as she filled her lungs, kneeling on the cold, hard floor, the split spread and stretched, displaying cleavage for the first time in her life!

"W-what's-? What the hell is this-?!" Erin gasped, staggering to her feet and noticing she stood a good deal taller than she remembered, her suit's seams popping and splitting open to show pale skin beneath.

Erin's shock was only compounded however, as she finally started to take in her surroundings. All around her, the rest of the pods contained the unmoving, unmistakably dead bodies of her neighbours, frozen eternally in time. Erin stumbled from pod to pod, slowly getting used to longer limbs and the gently bouncing weight on her chest, as she stared open-mouthed and wondered, "Why… Why has this happened? Why were we just frozen? Oh God, what about..?" She hurried from the room, searching the other cryo-bays. Every one held a body, until she reached the last pair. One was empty, its door swung wide, while the other… It stood open, but its occupant clearly hadn't died as peacefully as everyone else. Erin turned away from the frozen blood, covering her mouth and stumbling for the exit. She had to get out- She had to get away from this! The main corridor was blocked, so she had no choice, making her way through the hallways, looking for a way around. Finally, she found herself at the overseer's office and the sight of his skeleton shocked her enough to bring her to her senses. Panicking was going to do nothing. "I… I need to take a breath," she muttered to herself, heading shakily for the nearest washroom. "I have to figure out what-" Erin stopped, catching sight of herself in the dusty mirror that hung over the sink. "Oh my God, is that-?" The changes, it seemed, had not stopped at just her body. Her face was transformed! Her lips were fuller, even a little redder than their previous, lifeless pale; her eyes had a natural liner that drew her gaze towards dazzlingly dark-blue orbs; even her cheeks, now that colour was returning to them after the cold, were fuller and redder; and her hair shone jet-black and wild around her shoulders. Her body was tall, ten inches more than she recalled, if she was any judge; and her stick-thin build had vanished under healthily soft and smooth skin. Her breasts were the size of small melons under her ruined top and even her hips and rear had grown out. All in all, she could barely recognise the diminutive, unattractive girl who had blundered naively into Vault-Tec's freezer, who knows how long ago. She reached up, confirming her face with her fingers and staring in shock and wonder. "That's me… What the heck did Vault-Tec do to me?"


	2. Chapter 2 - View from the Vault

Erin winced as she stepped around the hideously over-sized bodies of the roaches that littered the escape tunnel. At some point during her panicked flight through the vault, she had kicked off her boots, so at least they weren't pinching. Her feet hadn't grown much, but they'd been painful once feeling had returned to her extremities after what must have been (judging from the skeletons and rust) at least the better part of a lifetime in deep-freeze. The issue then was that the concrete was bitterly cold and the tough pieces of exoskeleton that had been scattered across the tunnel floor were sharp! A few bullet casings lay where they had fallen, while some of the roaches had been cracked open by a small, blunt object. Whoever had come this way had certainly left a mess, but all the same, it was re-assuring to the young girl: Someone else was alive. Perhaps the other survivor from the pod she'd found empty had taken the baby and got out? She had no way of knowing how long ago that had been however, so the odds of catching them up were slim…

Erin's suspicions were confirmed when she emerged from the tunnel and saw the massive vault door standing open. Either someone had come in or, far more likely, someone had left. Before she could do the same however, she needed something better to wear. Her child-sized vault suit was coming apart with every step and while she had to admit that a certain, vain part of her liked the idea (to say nothing of the feeling), it would never do to go above with it in such disrepair. She had no idea what was waiting for her, but whatever it was, she'd greet it properly dressed! Luckily, the same boxes the vault suits were being handed out from when she arrived were still there, lying next to the skeletal remains of what was possibly that same smiling Vault-Tec rep that had greeted her. After seeing the frozen corpses of her neighbours in the cryo pods however, Erin was largely numbed to the sight now and soon found a pristine Vault 111 jumpsuit, still in its plastic packaging. As she tore it open however, Erin noticed a far greater prize down a short flight of steps. Water had pooled in the trench near the door and lying half in and half-out of the murky trough was a skeleton, its outstretched arm reaching up the stairs and on its wrist, a still-serviceable Pip Boy personal computer.

Erin winced at the thought of stealing from the dead, but who even knew what she might face one she stepped out of the vault. Chinese troops perhaps; or hostile mutants; an irradiated desert; or even a revived, futuristic America! Anything was possible and anything she could carry would only help. "Sorry about this," she mumbled, reaching out and tugging at the solid device. The few scraps of waterlogged sinew that held the bone in place fell apart at even the slightest force and she found the band easy to slip free and wipe with an old oil cloth, before fitting it snugly around her wrist. "On the other hand, I've always wanted one of these," she sighed. "Let's see… This thing has biometrics, so let's see if it can tell me what's happened to my body." The time so close to water hadn't been kind to the dials and switches on the pip-boy and Erin struggled a little with their stiffness, before they gave way. "Okay, here we are… Uhm…" she frowned, looking at the array of information offered. Pulse rate; blood pressure; nerve activity… It all would have been fascinating, if her college course had been in medicine rather than comp sci. It wasn't that she couldn't understand at least some of the information being displayed; it was just that she had no idea what was a 'normal' baseline to compare it to! "What was I really expecting?" she sighed, "A bar reading, 'You are this far from death'?"

The new vault suit was a perfect fit. The snug fabric nestled tightly over Erin's figure, but she knew this was no time for vanity, as much as the prospect of investigating her changed body intrigued her. The heavy elevator ground ponderously downwards, with significantly more scraping and sparks than it had the last time she had boarded it. Erin took a nervous step forward and looked up at the distant daylight high overhead. Despite being only the size of her thumbnail, it filled her with mixed emotions. The last glimpse she had seen of her home was as it was consumed by the blast from an atom bomb. At least the tiny scrap of sky that she could see far overhead was clear and blue, rather than the fiery orange it had been before. "Well… Here goes nothing, I guess," she muttered, pressing the button and gulping as the gate rattled down behind her and the platform began its long and shuddering ascent. As she neared the opening, anxious panic started to rise in her chest and her limbs shook with suppressed fight-or-flight response. There was no way she could stay underground, of course; sooner or later, she would need food, and variety of which was sorrowfully lacking in the Vault and besides that… There was too much death there. Vault 111 was a tomb and one she, as one of the living, had no place in.

* * *

The light was blinding, forcing Erin's eyes shut as the elevator emerged into the open air. As she shielded her face with her upraised arm, a gust of wind brought an eddy of dust to her nose and mouth and she doubled over, coughing and spluttering as she blinked in the light. "Not the best start," she mused, as she spat and stood to survey her surroundings… And froze. The world was a ruin. Before her, down the hill in what had once been her home, only the lifeless shells of houses still remained and beyond that, Massachusetts stretched out, empty and silent. All her life, Erin had been used to the hum of atomic motors and the rumble of cars, or the soft growl of a Mister Handy's jet engine, or just the soft murmur of a radio through the neighbour's window. Now, she fell to her knees and tears pricked her eyes as she felt the heart-rending sensation of being the only person in the entire world. The fragile resolve, born of shock, that had held since the overseer's office, crumbled like a child's sandcastle before a wave and Erin sobbed, her newly beautiful eyes filling with tears, which spilled over her cheeks and onto the unfeeling steel beneath her. Great, wracking sobs shook her until there were no more tears left to shed and only dry heaving and shaking remained. Her misery choked her, until Erin sat up on her heels and wiped her eyes with a balled fist, still hiccupping gently as her grief clung on. As she did so however, her ears pricked. The world wasn't as quiet as she had first imagined. Crows cawed, their harsh voices sounding like dogs barking; the breeze rattled the dead limbs of trees and brushed through the undergrowth like a careful hand; in the far, far distance, she thought she heard a deer's barking bray and a faint, echoing popping. There was still life here, maybe even people.

Erin wiped her eyes and took a deep, shaking breath. The air didn't _taste_ contaminated and the Geiger counter every Pip-Boy came with wasn't going off, so she should be safe to walk around, but where to go? Where did someone even start living in a world that had been destroyed? As Erin pondered the question, her eyes rested on the metal control booth that stood to the side of the elevator. The operator's last act had been to send her and everyone on the platform to what they had thought was safety, but had turned out to be the death of all but three of them. Her eyes narrowed, as she recognised the faded Vault-Tec logo stencilled on the rusted metal. This was their fault. Maybe the company couldn't be blamed for the war, but the vault and what had happened down there; the deaths of dozens of people; her own… Changes… They were Vault-Tec's doing. She wanted answers. If Boston hadn't suffered a direct hit, there was a chance the Vault-Tec regional office there was still intact. Maybe she could find something to tell her what had happened to her; why Vault-Tec had done it and what their purpose was in freezing everyone alive. Erin rose and gulped back her nerves. She had a purpose now – a goal. It wouldn't keep her warm, her throat wet or her belly full, but it got her moving and that was important.

Erin shook like a leaf, her hands clasped over her mouth. Seeing bodies the aftermath was one thing, but the _act_ of murder-? She had made her way to what remained of Sanctuary Hills, aiming to perhaps find something of use in the ruins, but what she had seen had stopped her dead in her tracks. The path down to the small footbridge was easy going, but barely had she set foot beyond the gates to the vault's perimeter, when four loud cracks split the air like a whip, causing her to squeak with fear and throw herself to the ground. More sounds followed; something almost like the boom of thunder, mixed with the distinct, low hum of an energy weapon of some kind. Erin crawled desperately off the path and into the bushes, peeking out. Three bodies lay on the ground, fresh, burned markings showing how they died. They wore a mix of rough clothes, leathers and rusted metal and a fourth man, similarly dressed, was slumped on the ground behind a tree, clutching at his right arm in pain. As Erin watched, he leaned out, nervously checking down the path… At once, another booming hum split the air and a red beam of light lanced out, blowing the man's head apart like a ripe melon! Erin stifled her gasp with her hand, as she watched the man slump over. His killer rose from a kneeling position near the footbridge and swept the area, his weapon still at the ready. He was dressed oddly; almost like someone from colonial times, even including a kind of cowboy hat. Erin silently waited, praying she wasn't spotted, until the dark-skinned man shrugged and turned, heading towards Sanctuary Hills.

* * *

Erin felt sick and had to fight to keep from spewing whatever was in her stomach all over the ground. The graphic way the man had died was branded into her memory, as was the casual ease with which his killer had done the deed and then waited for Erin herself to show herself. And worse yet, the man was now between her and her destination! Erin closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. "I… I just need to be careful," she told herself in a whisper, "If he doesn't see me, I-I should be safe." Her heart hammered in her chest so loudly, she could swear anyone with a pair of ears could hear it from the far side of the river, but without at least some kind of supplies, she was as good as dead out here, just as surely as if she caught one of those laser blasts in her chest. Little by little, Erin crept forward. The footbridge was obviously no good; she'd be right out in the open, so she'd have to cross by splashing through the stream. Luckily, it was neither wide, or deep and while she knew the water was probably radioactive, the brief exposure wasn't even enough to cause her new Pip-boy to tick. The closer Erin got to her old home however, the more she regretted her decision. It was too late to turn back now, of course and she didn't really have much choice, but… "I-I'll be quick," she muttered, "I'll just… Grab whatever seems useful and get away. I'll be fine." She reached out and tugged gently on the back door, trying to ease it open. The fatigued creak of the hinges set the hairs on the back of her neck on end and she squeezed her eyes shut, counting to ten. No-one seemed to have heard it. Erin let out the breath she'd been holding and squeezed inside, only to be met with a collapsed beam that had fallen from the roof and blocked her way. "No… Oh come on," she whispered, biting her lip anxiously. There was no way around, but maybe if she could just shift it a little..? She wasn't very strong, but if she could just wriggle it a little, she should be able to fit past.

Erin gripped the beam and heaved with all her meagre strength, but it wouldn't budge. "Nnngh- Come on..! Just six lousy inches? Please?" Now she'd come this far, Erin wasn't leaving without at least trying one more time. She squatted down, remembering she was supposed to lift with her legs, rather than her back and adjusted her grip. "One. Two. Three-!" She counted herself down and heaved, but still it refused to move. "Come on, come on-!" she almost sobbed, fear of discovery growing in her chest. Once more, she took a deep breath and pulled! A sensation ran though her, like a warm, tingling rush that stole her breath. For a moment, it stole her breath with the sudden, unexpected pleasure it brought, but more shockingly, the beam suddenly moved! It was by no means light, but all at once, Erin found herself not only shifting it a few inches, but lifting it clear of the ground! What she hadn't realised however, was just how much was balanced on the beam. With a rattling crash, a cascade of metal plates and roof tiles slid off and smashed to the ground, immediately prompting surprised voices!

"What in the hell was that?"

"I don't know. Maybe one got away? Keep everyone back; I'll deal with this."

"A'ight… You be careful, Preston."

That had to be him. The man who'd gunned down those others in front of her. Erin squeaked in fear and dropped the beam, sending yet more debris raining down, before she turned on her heel and ran for her life!

"There she goes, the scoundrel!" cried a third voice. "Tally ho!"

"Hey! Hold it there! Wait!"

Not a CHANCE, Erin thought, as she sprinted for the safety of the treeline, mud splashing around her ankles as she neared the river. She wasn't stopping for anyone or anything, while that killer was pursuing her!

* * *

The world that had seemed so barren and dead was suddenly all too alive. Leaves, creepers and branches all plucked at Erin's hair and clothes, as if the plantlife itself were maliciously trying to slow her down. Her breath rasped and caught in her throat as she ducked behind a tree, heaving for breath. She had never been a particularly athletic girl and the last few minutes had accounted for as much exercise as she usually got in a year! "Please don't still be following me," she panted; a quiet prayer to any god that was listening, "Please oh please just go back…"

Erin strained to listen, peeking around the scaberous trunk of the tree and hoping against hope she would hear nothing - that her pursuer had given up the chase… But what reached her ears was nothing human. She turned her head slowly and her mouth opened in horror at seeing the thing advancing toward her. Hairless skin; blind eyes; a blunt, whiskered snout; teeth like chisels of bone; and most horribly, through its blistered and scarred flesh, a hideous green luminescence glowed. Erin couldn't even find the breath to scream, as the creature snarled and bounded forward, leaping up and bowling her over! With a desperate effort, her fingers managed to find a grip and she struggled, trying to hold the thrashing thing away from her neck! Tears stung her eyes as its hot fetid breath washed over her face and her Geiger counter started ticking. It couldn't be; she couldn't die like this-!

The crack of thunder split the air and a brief flash of searing heat lanced into the glowing monster. It roared in pain and turned, only to meet another flash and slump, the malicious light in its eyes dying.

"Damn, you have a death wish or something?" His heavy boots splashed through the mud, frowning and holding his weapon unthreateningly across his body. "You okay? It didn't take a chunk out of you, I hope?" He reached out a hand to Erin, looking concerned. "Come on. You're safe now; I'm with the Minutemen- Whoa!"

Erin no longer cared if he was a killer. She no longer cared about the danger. All she wanted now, all she needed, was the human contact and assurance of safety that came with community. She took his offered hand, but rather than standing, she pulled hard, yanking the man down to sit beside her. Before another moment had passed, she had buried her face in his coat and was once again sobbing with fear and confusion.

"Oh man… Hey, uh, it's alright now. But this isn't any place to be crying about what could have happened- Aw man…" He awkwardly patted her head, clearly not used to having to deal with something like this. "Come on now… I'm Preston. What's your name?"

"E-erin," she managed to choke out, wiping her eyes and hiccupping slightly.

Preston gave a small sigh of relief that he'd managed to distract her. "Nice name. I just wish we could have met under better circumstances. Listen, this is no place to hang around. Let's get you up on your feet and back to Sanctuary."


	3. Chapter 3 - Unwelcome Home

She didn't want to see Sanctuary Hills. Its current state was just a reminder of what had happened. All the same, Erin took a deep breath and silently counted to three, before opening her eyes with an internal flinch. For a half moment, she imagined that everything was as she remembered it, what seemed like only scant hours before. Then the neat, manicured lawns, polished cars in their driveways and clean white sidings on the houses melted away like a morning mist, revealing the rust, grime and weeds.

"Mister Preston, I'm glad to see you returned unharmed. And is this the rapscallion who was trying to abscond with valuable resources?" A Mister Handy robot bobbed over, welcoming Erin's… She wasn't sure still if he was a rescuer, or a captor. "I do not believe we currently have a secure building in which to incarcerate the villain, but I'm sure some arrangements can be made to ensure she does not escape." The robot's buzzsaw whined dangerously and Erin flinched back, her eyes wide with horror. She'd never understood why a domestic servant robot even needed such a deadly tool, to say nothing of the flamethrower on one of its other arms. Frankly, having read so many sci-fi novels, the idea of deadly machines in every home, just waiting for the chance to turn on the 'meatbags' had scared the life out of her for years. Now, all those childhood fears came flooding back at once. 

"Codsworth, for God's sake, you're scaring her. Put that thing away before you do someone an injury," Preston sighed. "I don't think she meant any harm; she's just scared and desperate. Nothing unusual there."

"As you wish, Mister Preston. A pleasure to meet you ma'am! I am Codsworth, as you've no doubt gathered. And may I know your name?" The Handy's rotated its arms, lowering its dangerous tools and allowing Erin to breathe just a little easier.

"E-erin," she replied in a soft voice. She'd always been a quiet girl, uneasy with to talking with strangers and they didn't come in much stranger than people living in a place like this.

"Miss Erin, delighted to ma- Hold on…" Codsworth's three mechanical eyes peered closer, their shutters contracting, as if the robot were squinting. "My word! It's you! The very spitting image!"

"What-? What do you mea-?" Erin began, but the robot was already joyously carrying on.

"Oh this is marvellous! The master and mistress will be so pleased to know there was another survivor! Oh you simply must come over for tea just as soon as they return! Why, I'll need to tidy up! Nothing's harder to shift out of vinyl flooring than radioactive fallout, after all! Tata, Miss Erin! Please, do come by whenever you feel the urge! Oh this is spectacular!" If the robot had possessed legs, Erin was sure it would have been veritably skipping, as it floated away towards one of the dilapidated homes.

"Well that was… Unexpected," Preston remarked, "Codsworth's a bit odd sometimes, but you're the first one he's taken a shine to quite like that. Anyway, I know it's a bit delayed, but welcome to Sanctuary."

Looking around again, the place didn't seem quite as bad as Erin had first thought. The sight of green grass and leaves was encouraging, but so was the sight of people starting to emerge from the homes. A small farm clustered about halfway down the road, the crops looking sad and sickly, but growing. A hangdog-looking man with the most exhausted and distraught eyes Erin had ever seen, cast a glance in her direction, before taking a bucket and filling it and an old-style hand-pumped well. Another, much more cheery sort whistled as he carried a toolbox by. He stopped and waved to Preston, heading over with a smile.

"Well I'll be damned. Didn't think I'd see another one-eleven jumpsuit any time soon. Hard to believe anyone else crawled out of that hole! Name's Sturges. Y' need anything, just holler, y' hear?" He had a broad Southern accent and an easy smile between his sideburns. Next to the robot and Preston's military baring, he at least seemed easier to get on with.

"Uh- Erin," she nodded, shaking the offered hand nervously. "I-I'm sorry to be a bother…" Her head was swimming with a hundred questions, but they stuck in her throat, none of them having the conviction to be spoken.

"Aw shucks, one more ain't a bother. We're set up well enough to entertain guests now at least. Anyhow, I'll leave you in Preston's hands. I'd love to stay and chat, but those walls ain't gonna fix themselves. Not the turrets neither." He waved as he left - the first genuinely cheerful person Erin had seen since the world ended. It was good to see that at least someone remained upbeat in the face of the apocalypse.

"Sturges is pretty much the unofficial mayor around here," Preston explained, "Much as we need one anyway. Also a damn good handyman. He's got a point though; you showing up in that vault suit's about the second most unexpected thing to happen lately."

"I don't understand; why's it so-?" began Erin, but a sudden pang of hunger and a growl from her stomach cut her off. Although she'd been ignoring it for some time, ever since she'd stepped out of her cryo-pod, she'd been satarving. Her face immediately turned red, as she pressed a hand over her aching belly. Preston just laughed it off however.

"Hah-! How about you share your story after some chow? Come on; I think some soup still in the pot."

* * *

Erin inspected the dubious contents of her bowl with distaste. Preston assured her it was safe to eat, but her stomach was churning. "Uhm…"

"Not a fan of Mama Murphy's cooking?" Preston chuckled, leaning back in his chair and resting that weird, makeshift laser gun against the table. "I don't blame you. She over-boils everything, but I'm busy keeping watch; Sturges is fixing everything that's broke; Marcy gave me a look that could strip paint when I asked her and Jun… Well, no-one's got the heart to ask, so Mama Murphy and Codsworth share the cooking."

"I-it's not that," Erin mumbled, "Just… Is this… Safe to eat?"

She lifted her spoon and hesitantly inspected the soggy, grey lump there. Preston blinked, "What, you think we're gonna poison you? If I wanted you dead, I could have just let that mole rat do it for me." He was vaguely offended; he was a Minuteman, dammit! Then again, if she was from the vault, she probably didn't know better.

"Mole rat?" Erin blinked, "But… But it was huge!"

"Pretty big, as they come, yeah," he shrugged, "I've seen a couple bigger though."

"But… Mole rats are tiny-! Little things the size of my hand! I saw one in a pet store once!"

"Oh! Right, I forgot," Preston shook his head, suddenly realising, "Man, I'm sorry; it's just still so weird to me. If you're from the vault, then I guess you were frozen too, huh?"

"Yeah…" Erin nodded, as it slowly sunk in how much had changed, "Oh my God… S-so they've grown. And I guess the plants mutated as well. So, what this then?" she raised her spoon and examined the lump carefully again.

"They didn't have tatos before the war?"

"Oh, it's just potato?" she could see how it might have lost its colour thanks to the radiation, but she knew potatoes; they were safe. Erin popped the spoon into her mouth and swallowed… And she immediately shuddered, pulling a face. "Hurp-!"

To his credit, Preston didn't laugh _too_ hard at her expression, instead covering his mouth and snorting as she groped for the old tin can of water that was being used as a cup. "Pfff-! Heh heh. No, it's a tato. I think I heard once that it's like a cross between a tomato and a potato or something? I know it tastes like dirt, but they're safe food, once they're cooked."

The carrots at least provided the same taste, even if they had sprouted a few extra branches and were boiled almost to mush, just as Preston had warned. Erin resolved not to complain and bolted the rest of the soup as fast as she could. 

"Judging from that face, I'm guessing Commonwealth cuisine ain't up to pre-war standards, huh?" smirked her new friend.

"It… It's fine," Erin lied. "So… What's happened to… Everything?"

"Where do you want me to start?" shrugged Preston. "The bombs fell and the whole world went to hell. Radiation died down after a couple dozen years and folks started living the best they could. The Commonwealth's a dangerous place and from what I hear, the rest of the world ain't much better. I'm… I used to be part of a group that was trying to keep folks safe; the Minutemen."

"Like, from the revolution?" Erin asked, "What happened to them?"

Preston nodded, "Yeah, ready to defend the people at a minute's notice. For a while, we were a real force for good in the Commonwealth. Folks knew they could always count on the minutemen. Then, things started to fall apart. After the last general died, everyone seemed to forget what we were fighting for. Then came the Quincy Massacre. I was with the only group to actually show up to that mess and after it was over, I was the highest-ranking Minuteman left standing… Now I'm the last. Well, that was until the General showed up." Seeing Erin's curious look, Preston told her the story, of how he and the last few survivors of Quincy were staring down death or worse in the Museum of Freedom, when help arrived in the form of the same survivor she had expected, searching for their son.

"That little baby was kidnapped?!" Erin gasped, "But… Why?! That's horrible!"

"No idea," Preston shrugged. "But regardless, I'm damn glad they showed up; saved our lives by powering up an old suit of power armour on the roof. Came in handy when a deathclaw pulled its way out of the old civic works tunnels and joined the party."

"What's a-?" Erin began, but Preston shook his head.

"About twelve feet of muscle, claws and anger, but that's not the point. After we made it safe here to Sanctuary, we got word there were still a few settlements out there that believed in the minutemen. Our hero decided to go help out and after they got back with the good news, we had a little talk. They're in charge of the Minutemen now. We're gonna re-build from the ground up. Maybe it'll give folks something to believe in again."

* * *

"But that's enough about the world," Preston sighed, "Things are kind of going to have to wait to move forward until the general gets back from Diamond City anyway. What about you? What's your story? More of the same?"

Erin nodded, meekly. "Probably. I'm sorry… I-I entered the vault just as the bombs fell and before I knew it, I was lead into one of those freezers. They said they were just going to decontaminate us, but when I woke up, I was-" she paused, realising that talking about her sudden growth may not be the most believable topic, even by the standards of this post-atomic world she'd awoken into. She had to wonder what the other survivor looked like now; had her growth been unique, or were the others just the same because they'd expired before it could take effect? More questions she needed answers to. "I was… Alone. No-one else was alive. So I found my way out and ended up here. Thank you for taking care of me."

"No sweat," Preston smiled compassionately. "Damn… I never asked the General, but it's gotta be one hell of a shock, waking up two hundred years on. You sure you're handling it alright?"

The can slipped from Erin's fingers with a clatter, bouncing across the flood. "Two- Two hundred?!" she gasped. She'd realised it must have been a long time; forty years perhaps, or sixty, but two centuries?!

"You didn't know?" Preston sat up, suddenly realising the impact of what he'd told her. "Damn… I'm sorry, I-"

Erin wasn't listening anymore. She couldn't breathe. Everything she'd eaten suddenly and violently churned in her stomach. She stumbled for the door, desperate for the air. Nothing at all was left; not even memories. No-one would even remember someone who themselves remembered life before the war!

* * *

Erin burst out onto the street, gasping for breath and her vision swimming. She felt like the weight of years was crushing her, drowning her like a tar swamp. She stumbled and fell, landing on her trembling hands and knees in the street she'd once called her neighbourhood. This was not despair or sadness, for she had no tears left to shed for such things; rather, it was a deep and shaking sudden revelation of just how much of a stranger she was to the world.

"Ohh, no kid, no. Come on, up you get. You keep lying there and you're gonna make the place look untidy." The unfamiliar voice broke a little of Erin's paralyzing confusion and she allowed a frail hand to help her up. Still feeling like there was a car on her chest, Erin look for who had addressed her and found herself meeting the misty blue eyes of an old woman, dressed like a gypsy, complete with beaded necklace and blue turban, sitting in a high-backed green leather wheelchair. "My goodness," the old woman gasped, her voice as frail as her grip, "You're- Oh my kid, you're something else, or at least, you will be…"

"Mama Murphey?" Preston had hurried out after Erin and now looked questioningly between the young girl and the old lady. Murphy had acted strangely before, when she'd met the general, or when she'd had one of her 'visions', but this was something different. Her expression was one of… He'd almost call it awe.

Erin was perplexed, but something about Mama Murphy's gaze held her spellbound.

"Kid, I know what you're going through," the old seer continued, her hand still gripping Erin's wrist and her skin feeling like paper. "Frozen, hundreds of years from home or memory of it. You're not alone in that, but for you… You're different. It changed you and you'll change again and again and again. Vault-Tec had no idea what they'd locked away down there under the hill. But as horrible as everything seems right now, you… You've been given a gift. A gift that'll make you greater, so great you'll barely recognise yourself."

* * *

"I- What are you talking about?" Erin gulped, her skin crawling from the strangeness of the encounter.

"The Sight," Preston explained warily, "It's… Well…"

"Ah, Preston doesn't know if it's real or if I'm just an old junkie who needs humouring," Mama Murphy chuckled. "But The Sight has never been wrong. Usually, I need the chems to catch glimpses of what was, is and will be, but sometimes, it just comes in a flash. When I saw that hero that saved us in Concord, I could see a little of who they were and what they were looking for. When I see you… Oh, it's unreal. Just you wait and see, kid. You're gonna be something special. I've Seen it." Mama Murphy sat back in her chair, the intensity of her vision seemingly draining her of energy.

"Come on Mama. Let's get you back to your house. I don't think any of us are in the best shape after our long journey and you're probably feeling it worse than most."

"Wait…" Erin found her voice again, despite the alien strangeness of the meeting clinging to her like fog. "The Sight… Is it really-?"

"I don't know," Preston sighed. He'd always avoided taking a strong side when it came to Mama Murphy's 'Sight'. At first, he'd always written it off as the eccentricity of an old woman, but as co-incidences kept piling up, even he had to question if it was all chance and mummery, or if there was more to it. "I guess… Mama Murphy's never been wrong yet, but still…"

"All the same…" Erin gulped and stepped forward. She had no idea what else to try, after all. "Mama Murphy? Can… Can you see what I have to do?"

"Hmmm. You're looking for answers, kid. That's pretty obvious. And after what you've gone through, there's maybe only one place you can find them. Vault-Tec. But it ain't gonna be that easy."

"I don't even know where to start," Erin sighed

Mama Murphy smiled kindly, "Kid, I wish I could help you, but The Sight don't come on demand and even if I had some jet, after what I just saw… I'm sorry. But there's still hope. The Commonwealth's full of strangeness. There's danger, true, but mixed in with it are things you can't even imagine; things not even old Mama Murphy's seen before. Those answers you're looking for are out there and just maybe, your destiny is as well."


	4. Chapter 4 - Goodbyes and Beginnings

**Before this chapter, I'd like to say a big thank you to my illustrator for providing the cover image for this story. With luck, we can count on more in the future!**

 **For the curious, a link to full-size version of the cover picture, as well as his other works, will be on my profile page (as apparently, I can't post links here).**

* * *

"I really, really don't think this is a good idea," Preston frowned. "The general is one thing, but have you even held a gun before?"

"I hope I won't have to," Erin replied. "But I still have to go. I have to find out what happened– Why Vault-Tec did what they did." She didn't mention her nigh-freakish transformation to anyone, but in truth, that change was one of Erin's main concerns. Vault-Tec's betrayal, freezing and killing nearly everyone had stung and the long sleep had taken Erin's feet from under her, but as long as she didn't think about it – as long as she focused on the here and now, it could be avoided. The moment the bombs had dropped, she'd known that everything was going to be changed forever. No, the thing that worried her was what had happened to her body. Was she sick? Could she be in danger still? What exactly had happened to her? No-one could provide answers that could mean her life or death, except Vault-Tec and waiting, not knowing if some invisible poison was going to spell her end, waiting for an invisible sword to fall, every day, was more than Erin could stomach even thinking about.

"You're kidding me, right?" Preston snorted derisively, "If the raiders don't get you, the animals will. I can count the things in the commonwealth that can't or don't want you dead on one hand. You can stay here, you know. It's not easy living, but it's safe and there's clean water and enough food too."

"I… I can't." She wasn't about to pretend that the idea wasn't tempting. Sanctuary was safe and (apart from the glaring woman Preston had identified as Marcy) friendly. From what she could gather, the same couldn't be said of the rest of the world. But after her first night there… "I have to go."

* * *

"Ayep. I figured you'd be saying something like that." Sturges had apparently been eavesdropping on Erin and Preston's conversation. He stepped through the door to the house looking serious. It was the day after Erin's arrival and she had spent a fitful night on a bare mattress, unable to sleep. The hours had crawled by amid wind rattling the loose panels of the house and animal cries echoing in the distance. She didn't feel safe; everything about her situation filled Erin with a monstrous dread that had her on the verge of screaming. Adding to her horror of her safe, familiar world turned wild, was the sheer strangeness of Mama Murphy's… 'Prophecy'? She didn't know what else to call it. Could such things really exist, or was it just wishful thinking? A sudden movement outside the cracked wall made Erin start, but as she peered out, it was just Preston holding a lantern and dutifully walking the perimeter of the ruins. She lay back and pulled the tattered, itchy blanket over her some more, blinking away tears. This place was just too full of ghosts. Of course, the whole world was, but somehow here, it felt worse from the familiarity. She wondered who had slept in the house before her… If they had died in the blast, or in the vault she, by pure chance, escaped from.

Erin shook off the memories of last night with a shudder, as Sturges sadly sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "Preston, there ain't no use in tryin' to convince her. Girl's made her mind up, so we may as well do what we can to make sure she doesn't die at least." He dropped a canvas gym bag onto the table with a light clatter and held out something for Erin. "I fixed up one of the guns them raiders were using. It ain't pretty, but it'll do the job. You can find .38 ammo almost everywhere and it'll deal with more or less anything not wearing armour."

Erin looked dubiously at the wooden frame, duct-tape wrapped grip and copper piping Struges had handed her. It looked about ready to explode the moment she pulled the trigger.

"I cut down the receiver a little to make it easier on your wrists," Struges blithely continued, clearly in his element. "She holds 12 rounds in the mag and it's a recoil-operated semi-automatic, so just keep pullin' the trigger aaand nothin' I'm sayin's gettin' through, is it?"

Erin mutely shook her head. The friendly mechanic had said the pistol had been a raider's… Had it killed someone? Would she have to? She desperately hoped not. Sturges said he'd cut down the weight, but it still felt like a block of lead in her hands, sodden with blood.

* * *

"If you're honestly going to leave, then you'll need it," Preston sighed. "It's not too hard. Line up the front and rear sights and squeeze the trigger. You'll get the hang of it. Honestly though, your best chance is to just keep a raider's head down as you run away."

"Running sounds better," Erin nodded, trying to keep her breakfast down. Just remembering what Preston's laser musket had done to the raiders was enough; she never wanted to be responsible for that much sheer destruction to another human being.

"I put as many extra round as we can spare into that-there bag for ya," Struges nodded towards the gym bag. "Couple'a stimpacks too, in case the worst should happen."

"How do I-?" Erin began.

"Just push the needle into near where you're hurt," Preston explained. "The mechanism will do the rest. Hope you're not afraid of needles." He smirked a little, all three of them well aware that a little needle was going to be the least of her worries.

"Also threw some food in there. Pre-war stuff's a little stale, but we can grow our own, so it won't hurt us. Clean water ain't a problem neither, but I can't say the same for anywhere else out there."

"Wherever you can, fill up any empty bottles, cans or canteens from a well like ours," Preston instructed, leaning forward over the table to emphasise his point. "Never trust standing or even running water, except in an emergency."

Erin nodded, wishing she could shut her ears. Every word felt like another nail in the old world's coffin, but the information her new friends were giving her about where to look for food and medical supplies and how to avoid the Commonwealth's more obvious dangers was the difference between life and death, so she had to listen and remember every cruel sentence.

"Alright… I think that's the basics," Preston sighed. "Dammit, if the Minutemen were still around in any kind of numbers, I'd suggest you ask someone to go with you, but I'm needed here and who knows where the General is by now."

* * *

"And the Vault-Tec office of all places," Sturges added, "Right into downtown Boston. If y' don't mind my saying, going in like you are now is just plain suicide. At the very least, see if'n you can get some kind of armour first."

"Like what?" Erin asked in a very small voice. She had to leave soon, or else she'd lose her nerve.

"Depends. Brahmin leather and animal hide's lightweight and tough. You don't really look strong enough for anything metal, no offence… The best you can find's pre-war combat armour, but most of that's owned by the Gunners and they don't like sharin' nothin' 'cept bullets."

"Worse than even ordinary raiders," Preston scowled. "They're the ones responsible for the Quincy Massacre."

"Is there anything out there that doesn't want to kill me?" Erin whimpered, looking between the two in desperation.

Struges and Preston exchanged a glance and it didn't take a genius to realise, they were both mentally assessing her chances of survival and finding them pretty poor.

"There's the traders?" Preston offered. "In fact, if you can tag along with a caravan, it's about the safest it's likely to get. Diamond City's the biggest settlement around too, right in downtown Boston. If you're near there, the guards should keep the raiders and super mutants off your back. If they weren't so over-crowded, we'd have tried to make it there, but they don't really take in many new residents. Space inside the old stadium's pretty tight."

* * *

Erin picked up the bag and slung it across her back. Just that action caused her to hesitate however. A quick feel of the contents spoke of several cans and bottles of water; plenty of tins of food packed with so many preservatives, she was amazed people's stomachs hadn't survived as well as their houses; a few boxes of extra ammunition for her new weapon (which was slung awkwardly behind her on a borrowed belt) and spare magazines; and finally the two stimpacks, their delicate needles enclosed in protective, hard plastic cases. All in all, it was far more than she knew she could comfortably carry, even with her larger frame, but somehow, it felt light, like a couple of armfuls of bed linen. Erin's mind returned to her heaving at the steel beam the day before. There was no way she was that much stronger, surely..? She pushed the thought from her mind, still shying away from the reality of what had happened to her. "This… This is it then." She gulped, looking out over the Old North Bridge. It was nearly mid-day already, but mist still clung to the river like a shroud in the late October air.

Sturges gently laid a hand on Erin's shoulder "If you're having second thought, or if'n y'all change your mind, remember, y' don't have to do this. No-one's gonna blame you for not wantin' to throw your life away."

For a moment, Erin hesitated. She _could_ stay… Given time, she might get used to things here and there was no guarantee that whatever had happened to her in the vault really _was_ dangerous. Sanctuary was likely as safe as she was going to get and she was about to walk out into a world full of people and animals that nearly all wanted her dead and were very capable of doing just that! She was planning to walk out there with a bag of food 200 years past its best-before date and a pistol that looked as likely to kill her as anything else. She was an 18-year-old girl in a body that wasn't her own, facing the very real prospect of death or much, MUCH worse. The more she faced it, the more her own actions seemed laughably naïve and suicidal!

* * *

And yet, something in her mind pushed her forward. Maybe it was the childish belief in her own immortality rearing its head for one last hurrah; maybe it was the horrible shock of her situation having shaken a few screws loose; maybe what had happened in the vault just a little mad; or perhaps her new body had given her just a little more confidence to face the unknown. Erin didn't know, but all the same, she made her choice, her heart hammering in her chest. She turned and took Sturges' hand, then Preston's. "Thank you for everything," she said, her voice shaking with nerves that clearly showed on her face and made her seem more like a nervous chinchilla than a bold adventurer. She rushed through her words, as if afraid they would stick in her throat if she hesitated for a second. "I can't thank you enough I promise I'll pay you back somehow I don't know how but I promise I will I'll come back and repay you thank you for being kind and taking me in I'll do my best to make sure it wasn't wasted I promise thank you-" She had to stop, gasping for breath after her run-on sentence and bending forward slightly, still holding their hands.

"Just… Try not to get yourself into trouble, okay?" Preston smiled awkwardly. "And like Sturges said, our gates are always open if you decide it's too much."

Erin nodded and took a deep breath, stiffly walking towards the bridge, her limbs and back rigid as a toy soldier's. Marcy Long was leaning against one of the stunted stone towers that flanked the bridge, glaring out at the world from dark eyes, particularly at Erin.

"G-goodbye, Marcy," the younger woman tried to wish the hostile watchwoman farewell. "Thank you for, uhm… Keeping watch."

Marcy just glowered. It was clear she rated Erin's chances even less than Preston and Struges. Finally, she sighed and jerked a head towards the bridge. "Nothing I hate more than raider scumbags," she scowled, reaching for the weapon resting on the low wall next to her. It looked like a larger, if no less ramshackle, version of Erin's own pistol, with the addition of a rifle stock and a drum magazine. Marcy patted it menacingly. "If you see any, put a few down for me."

"Good luck." Her husband, tired and melancholy as he looked, appeared at his wife's elbow. "Try to stay safe. The commonwealth doesn't need any more needless deaths…"

Erin nodded, not trusting her voice. She took a long breath, before turning on her heel and walking briskly out over the bridge. The waters of the Concord river still flowed strong and well beneath her feet, even as choked with detritus as the river was. On the far side, the Minuteman Statue stood on guard, musket raised, as if protecting the settlement behind her. Beyond its protective gaze, the Commonwealth stood, silent ruins a testament to what had been lost and a looming aura of menace telling what had replaced it. Erin looked back and saw that most of the small group had already turned away, returning to the daily toil of survival. One still watched her though, from a green leather wheelchair, patiently waiting for Erin to go and meet her 'destiny'. Erin raised her hand and gave a small wave, before swallowing her nerves and setting out. Boston and her answers, weren't getting any closer just standing there.

* * *

The Red Rocket garage was still standing, although locked up tight. At a glance, it was pretty obvious someone, probably the Sanctuary settlers, had already stripped it of valuables and occupied it. The windows were fortified and the doors securely shut and locked. Erin walked on past, trying to ignore the muffled beeping she heard inside that probably told of some kind of defences she's rather not walk into. Concord was ahead and that would make a good first stop. She might even be able to find something useful there, like a toolbox she'd inevitably need, even if she had no clue precisely how to use its contents. No sooner had she gone five meters past the gas station however, than the echo of gunfire came from the town just ahead. Erin stopped dead in her tracks and gulped. It didn't sound like too many, but she had no desire to step into a gunfight, meaning she'd have to go around Concord's outskirts. Already, her plans were falling apart in front of her eyes. That did not seem all that auspicious…


	5. Chapter 5 - Echoes Grim and Ghastly

The gunfire felt like it was getting closer. Erin froze, terrified to leave her hiding place, crammed between a wall and a dumpster. She couldn't tell if it was her thumping heart, or the steady slam of an automatic weapon that shook her body, but she was certain that if she stayed there much longer, she'd be done for. Then again, maybe moving out into the open, trying to get away from the danger, would only put her at risk of being hit! Erin held her breath and tried to focus. She'd never heard gunfire anywhere but a Silver Shroud radio play before, but she tried to count the shots and see how many were shooting. It sounded like just one person… And still a few streets away? Who could tell, with the way the empty buildings echoed? Regardless, if she waited, she would certainly be found – her hiding spot wasn't especially well-concealed from anybody concertedly looking for her. Erin made her choice. Clasping her bag close, she crawled out and glanced furtively back and forth, like a mouse emerging from its hole. The road was deserted. She slowly crawled out and stood crouched. No-one seemed to have noticed her yet… She took a step forward, then another and suddenly, the gunfire stopped with a cut-off scream and she could hear what the loud bangs had been covering: Dogs. Erin ran, bending low and sprinting for her life, her hands over her ears. Anything, ANYTHING was better than hearing that!

* * *

Erin ran for her life, her feet pounding the dirt until her lungs burned and her legs shook. Finally, unable to run any further, she slumped against the rusted hulk of a car and turned, grabbing for her gun and praying she wasn't followed. The angular metal of the improvised butt was unfamiliar in her hand and slipped, the weapon falling to the road with a clatter, but thankfully, it was un-needed anyway. The dog pack hadn't followed her. Erin didn't want to consider why. As she recovered her breath, sliding down to the floor and looking up at the cloud-streaked sky, Erin was struck by how far she had run. Concord was a dwindling collection of toy houses on the hills, distanced from her by a long ribbon of cracked and grey road. While her limbs were shaking and her heart pounding as she gasped for great lungfuls of air, she would never have got half as far before her long sleep. It felt better to call it a sleep, than focusing on what had truly happened to her; her own body was alien to her now… By her guess, she had to be half a kilometre from the town's outskirts, if not a little more. She should have been exhausted after less than a hundred meters, especially in her panicked sprint. Erin reached down, her hands shaking not from fatigue, but now from nerves. She almost didn't want to know – didn't want to acknowledge her change, but she had to admit, there was a small part of her that found it… Exciting?

* * *

Her slim fingers gently squeezed her thigh, as Erin told herself that she was just making sure she hadn't pulled anything in her flight from Concord. She could feel flesh and muscle under her vault suit… Nothing out of the ordinary however, if she considered that running so far must have brought some tension out in her muscles. There was certainly nothing to indicate she'd somehow become anything more than a reasonably average full-grown woman. Perhaps she'd simply imagined her fitness as more than it was..? No; even the Olympics only had events up to 400 meters. She'd never heard of anyone 'average' running as far as she had, flat-out. Perhaps it was adrenaline; a surge of panic and fear for her life? Possible… She tensed her leg and squeezed again and suddenly gasped. There was no question about it; she was definitely stronger than she looked. The muscles hadn't felt like anything special before, but now they were suddenly hard and lean as a pro athlete's! There was still a concealing layer of softness over them, but the change was undeniable. Erin let herself relax a little and the muscles that had sprung to life, melted back to what they had been. So… Surviving where everyone else had died hadn't been enough; now she was a freak too. Still, if this was her 'freakishness', then Erin supposed with a small, guilty smile, there were plenty of worse ways she could have turned out.

* * *

After taking a long pull from one of the water bottles she had brought with her from Sanctuary (not 'Hills' she had to remind herself; that was in the past now), Erin heaved herself up and brushed the dust off her jumpsuit, returning her pistol to its impromptu holster. The weapon dug into her back, shifting until it pointed straight down between her cheeks. Erin rubbed a hand over them and blushed, glancing skyward. She needed to find a better place to put that gun soon, if only to save herself the embarrassment. For now, she'd just have to ignore it. Concord was behind her and Lexington was a fair way ahead, so she had no time to stand around. Preston had impressed upon her the importance of finding somewhere secure to shelter at night, where she wouldn't be stumbled upon in her sleep and murdered, or eaten. Erin was struck however, by just how _big_ the world was now! Stripped of the luxury of hopping on a bus and riding anywhere she wanted to go, hours of endless walking was the price to pay to get anywhere at all. The world stretched out around her, quiet and vast, but at least two centuries had given it time to re-grow just a little. Patches of green grass sprouted everywhere; not the carpet of verdant life it had once been, but the sparse clumps gave Erin a shred of hope. A few green leaves still clung to the trees, in spite of the late season, indicating that they too had started to re-grow. In spite of everything humanity had done to try and destroy the world, people and plants still survived. Erin felt a melancholy peace settle tentatively in her chest. The world was slowly healing. It may not be in her lifetime, but some day, everything would be back to normal. It let a little of her grief for the world that had been slip from her shoulders, to be lost on the dusty road, as she walked a little straighter.

* * *

Erin skirted around the long-rusted shells of cars, as she drew closer to Lexington's outskirts. The world was stained a warm orange from the sinking sun, casting long shadows across the street. The only sound was a steady drip-drip-drip of water from a broken pipe protruding from a half-collapsed building and the cawing of crows as they returned to their nests for the evening. Erin noticed one watching her, perched on top of an old power line that had long since ceased to carry a current. She was a little amazed at how little the radiation had effected it, the bird's glossy black coat showing no sign of mutation or the other foulness that had effected the mole rat Preston had saved her from. Seeing that the object of its fascination was unlikely to become a convenient meal for it any time soon, the crow took flight, leaving Erin watching it soar into the sky. She wished she could join it; just fly away and find a place where the world was perhaps as she remembered it… But she was stuck on the ground and as such, needed shelter and safety. Nothing immediately presented itself. She thought about maybe crawling through one of the shattered windows and hiding inside a car, but that would be far too visible and accessible. Instead, Erin approached a small, brick apartment building and tugged at the door handle. Almost at once, the corroded metal knob came off in her hand, causing her to stumble a step back and nearly fall on her rear, as her arms flailed at the top of the porch steps.

Erin cast the useless metal ball aside with a metallic clatter and considered her options. It'd be simplest to just find another place to sleep, but many of the homes and buildings dotted around either looked unsecure or just plain unsafe to enter. Erin tried to peep through the hole the missing door handle had left, but while the inside looked fairly clear, an improvised barricade was piled up against the door. The windows were likewise boarded, so there was no way in on the ground floor, without a great deal of effort. Erin looked down at her hands and frowned. She might just be strong enough to push the door open regardless… Her body was certainly more than it appeared, but apart from if she _could_ manage it, she wondered if she even _should._ Actually using her new abilities felt vaguely profane. Erin shuddered and stepped back from the door, more scared by the thought of actually managing to open it, than any chance of failure. Her eyes fell upon a rusted fire escape leading up to the roof and she sighed in relief. An up-ended trashcan provided the platform to grasp the lowest rungs of the ladder and haul herself up. For a moment, she was afraid the ancient structure wouldn't hold her weight, but aside from a few ominous creaks, it seemed stable. Step by step, Erin climbed toward the roof, until she found a shattered window that offered an entrance. "Uh… Excuse me," she called quietly, as she awkwardly slipped inside, wary of the still razor-sharp glass shards that clung to the frame. Despite the inhabitants probably having been dead for centuries, she still felt like she was breaking and entering.

* * *

The room she stepped into had apparently once been a bedroom. The dresser, double bed and other small items of everyday life, stood ravaged by exposure to time and weather. Erin supressed a shudder at the sight of two skeletons lying on the bed, one draped over the other. Ancient, rust-red stains on the mattress told of what had happened. These two unfortunate souls must have lived through the bombs, only to decide that the world they now lived in had been beyond enduring. A badly corroded steak knife lay on the bedside table. The first had likely slit their wrists, then lain on the bed with their loved one, before the latter took their own life with a pistol. The weapon still lay where it had fallen, the wind and rain of two hundred years leaving it, if anything, in an even worse state than Erin's own sidearm. She shuddered, walking past and trying not to think of what they had endured. To move them from the bed where they lay was beyond imagining; let them at last have the peace they deserved. Before she could rest, Erin realised she needed to explore as much of the building as she could, making sure no horrors lurked in some overlooked room, waiting for her to lower her guard. The scene from the bedroom was repeated everywhere. Some had died peacefully, tucked into their beds. Others lay, covered with blankets, perhaps delayed victims of the bombs. Still others had taken their lives in various ways, turning the apartment into a tomb. Erin sat, huddled in the corner of what had once been a living room. The few surviving cushions and threadbare curtains formed her bed, as she tried to ignore what was around her. It felt like she was sleeping in a crypt, but in all honesty, she knew she would likely have to get used to it. Erin took a shuddering breath as she tried to steel herself to the idea of sleeping only meters in every direction from where so many people had died. The whole Commonwealth was a graveyard and there was no escaping it. She dolefully regarded her cold tin of pork'n'beans and swallowed a scream that was building up inside her. She couldn't afford to panic. She had a goal and she was as ready as she would ever be. She laid the empty tin to one side and curled up, shivering under her meagre blankets. The vault suit was mildly insulated, but the October evening wind was cool, working its way through the cracks in the now-ancient structure. Erin squeezed her eyes shut and waited for sleep to come.

* * *

Erin's dreams were disturbed and disturbing. Skeletons walked the apartment, living out their last moments in a ghastly tableau. Everyday actions performed by walking bones, before a brilliant flash blasted everything to dust. Erin suddenly awoke with a gasp, her mind for a moment not grasping her location. Her eyes focused on the discarded tin from the night before. A cockroach the length of her hand poked its head from the inside and in instinctual revulsion, Erin's foot lashed out, kicking the can across the room with a clatter. She sat bolt upright, her chest heaving as she gasped for breath. It was done – she had survived her first night alone and like hell was she eating cold pork'n'beans before bed again! She grabbed her duffle bag with an abrupt gesture and hurried from the building, the same way she entered. A weak morning sun pushed through the clouds overhead, promising a bright day. As she descended the stairs, Erin glimpsed a sickly-green tinted cloud in the distance, rolling its way across the land, thankfully not towards her. Once her feet touched the ground, Erin inspected the pip-boy's map function and winced at how much further it was to Boston. Her changed body at least had the advantage of not paining her from over-use, as her original self might have, but the lonesome miles ahead held no promise of joy.

* * *

Erin passed around the bulk of Lexington, not trusting the interior, after her narrow escape at Concord. The Corvega plant in particular, loomed like a sinister fortress over the town and cast a shadow Erin was eager to avoid. Instead, she picked her way around the town, still gazing in horrified fascination at the remains of ancient lives. The bombs had fallen early in the day. A rusted bus stood, its windows shattered and seats filled with skeletal remains. Erin looked up at the dirty, broken glass, as she walked by. Had they just dismissed the sirens as another drill? It would have been easy to, certainly. They had probably not even had time to be afraid. A sudden clatter ahead made her heart jump into her mouth and Erin froze, her eyes wide, searching for the source of the noise. A lone crow flapped away, its wings loudly clapping and Erin let the breath she had been holding surge forth in a relieved sigh. The bird had simply knocked against a long string of cans, suspended from a line, as it took off. Curious though; what would a string of cans be doing hanging there..? Erin glanced back and couldn't help but give a shocked gasp, as she saw what lay beneath the impromptu chimes. A man, scarcely more than a boy and by the looks of things, in horrific pain, looked up at her, red-shot eyes meeting her own. He tried to raise a hand, but he was too weak and it simply fell limply to the ground. Erin's feet were moving before she had even finished realising what she was seeing, rushing over to the poor man. As she drew closer, the extent of his condition became more apparent and stomach-churning. His right hand lacked several fingers and his feet were missing all their toes; his ragged clothes were filthy with more than just simple dirt and his lips were crusted with white film, in stark contrast to the dark bruises over the rest of his body. Even with her lack of medical knowledge, Erin could tell that without help, he was doomed to a slow and horrible death.

* * *

"Hold still," she gasped, falling to her knees beside him and helping him sit up a little. "Oh god… I-I have stimpacks. Maybe I can-"

The man tried to speak, but his words were croaked and quiet, his voice dry as dust and too faint for Erin to hear.

"What? Oh! Water, of course-! You must be… I have some, here. Let me just-" Her hands shook in desperate panic, as she tried to bring her bag around to where she could root through its contents, before putting a bottle to the man's lips. He tried feebly to bat her away, but in his condition, there was little chance of success. Erin carefully managed to coax a little of the clean water between his cracked and bleeding lips, causing the man to cough violently. "There- There's more if you need it. N-now let me just-"

Suddenly, with a strength and speed borne of desperation, the man lunged forward, grabbing Erin by the collar and pulling her close. His breath was foetid, as he wheezed a single word urgently into her ear. "Run!"

"Wha-?" Erin shook, stunned by the sudden and violent movement. "Run? What d- From what?"

Click.

Erin looked up, even as the man she had been tending to slumped in despair. At the far end of the alley he had crawled from, a man and a woman, both wearing armour seemingly pulled together from random scrap, stood, grinning in a manner that left no doubt as to their intentions. The man had a pipe pistol levelled at Erin and the unfortunate invalid. The woman, her hair pulled into a ponytail at the crown of her head and welding goggles covering her eyes, merely laughed and idly swung a tire iron in her hand. "Oh, you _dumb_ bitch!"

Erin's blood turned to ice.


	6. Chapter 6 - Fear, Fight and Flight

As the tire iron-wielding woman just sniggered to herself like a hyena with a cold, the man's grin grew broader. "Well ain't this lucky. We found our lost toy, but he's nearly broken anyway and as luck'd have it, he's brought us right to a replacement! A damn sight prettier one too."

The girl hooted, leaning forward and shaking her head as she leaned on her knees. "Wha- What did you fucking think you were _doing_?!" she gasped. "Running away? On feet like _those_!? Then then you…" she gestured toward Erin with the tire iron, "Just running up like you're some kind of fucking angel of mercy. Ohhh man, it's just too much."

The mutilated man slumped back against the wall, terror and defeat written large across his face. "No… Please, not again-! No more!"

"Ah Christ, is he gonna start that again?" groaned the man with the pistol, rolling his eyes. "Fuck's sake. It always starts Patch sulkin' when they cry."

"Aw, just finish him," the woman snorted, advancing on Erin with a swagger. "We got a new one anyhow."

Erin was frozen, paralyzed with horror. These people… They were responsible for their victim's pitiful state?! She wanted to run, to get as far from them as possible, but fear froze her limbs and the idea of leaving the young man to his fate clouded her mind with indecision. Her eyes met his, as the woman was almost on top of them and Erin's panicked eyes suddenly narrowed, as she swallowed her terror.

* * *

Erin had never been an especially brave, or outspoken girl. From her early childhood, talking to new people had always been a challenge for her and even the idea of being introduced to a group had required her to muster her courage and willpower. Moving to Boston, away from her family, to a new school, surrounded by strangers, had taken all the nerve she had possessed. Now though, in a filthy alley, with death and worse mere moments away and the silent plea to her and any higher power that was listening in the tortured man's eyes, her heart rate spiked. All her fear and discomfort and panic and anger, mixed with primitive self-preservation, suddenly cracked open a reserve of adrenaline she never knew she possessed and her fight-or-flight instinct was immediately thrown HARD into 'fight'. Erin gripped the strap of her bag and with a scream of primal, desperate fear and rage at the fate before her, swung it in a wide arc. Tire-Iron saw it coming and raised her hand to ward it away, but tins of preserved food and heavy bottles of water in the canvas bag clipped off her hand, collided with her shoulder and the side of her head and smashed her into the wall of the alley! Before she could re-gain her bearings, or her companion find a space to fire a shot, Erin grabbed the fallen man by his arm and heaved, hauling then both for the corner. If they could just make it to the backstreets on the far side of the road, they might be able to lose their attackers.

* * *

"Oh you're fucking DEAD, girl!" the woman screamed, charging out of the alley with a murderous snarl. Hauling what was practically dead weight across the street was harder than Erin had expected; they were caught right in the open with no-where to hide! In desperation, Erin reached behind her and raised her pistol, just as the raider spotted them. Her hand shook at the idea of shooting another human, but for the moment at least, she didn't have to. Instead, seeing the weapon, the raider abruptly skidded to a halt and reversed her course, her feet flailing under her. Swearing. "Shiiit! Hey, the angel's packing!"

Erin gasped in relief and to emphasise the thread, held her breath and pulled the trigger. Even if the raider hadn't scrambled back into the alley to get her friend, it would have been a cold day in Arizona before Erin's wild shot hit anything. The weapon kicked in her hand as she snatched the trigger, rattling her locked elbows and kicking a puff of powdered masonry out of the wall, two stories up. The echo of the weapon's report bounced off the empty houses, muting Erin's hearing briefly, before a pop and a soft whine restored her senses to full functionality. By now, they had made it across the street, into what looked like an abandoned pizzeria. Erin dragged her charge, who was now moaning in pain at his attempts to hobble along with her, behind the counter and through to the kitchen, propping him up against the counter, as she struggled with the back door.

"Come on… Come on!" she snarled. There was no time to try picking the lock, even if she had the first clue how. The raiders were maybe only seconds from following them and they had to get to the safety of the back-alleys! Erin threw her weight against the door, making it rattle in its frame, as the male raider called out.

"You can run, but you can't hide, girl! Come on out! I'll make it niiiice and quick! You can trust me!" A burst of automatic fire filled the front of the shop, making Erin groan in despair. Apparently that pistol was rapid-fire. It did give her an idea however… She levelled her pistol at the lock and turned her head away, sheltering her face with her upraised hand. Splinters flew as she pulled the trigger over and over, the bullets smashing through the wooden door and weakening the lock enough that one more shoulder-barge was enough to smash it open. Erin reached back and pulled at the injured man, trying to sling one arm over her shoulder.

"Come on! We can't stop now!"

"Plea-" he cried out in pain, as the raw wounds on his feet rubbed against the ground. The man choked, trying to work his words through a throat ravaged by thirst. "I'll just slow you down! We'll never make it!"

Erin couldn't reply. She wanted to re-assure him - to tell him they'd get to safety, but she could tell he was right. With his struggling weight over her shoulder, they'd never make it far enough to escape their pursuers. If she couldn't think of something soon, her act of mercy would see them both dead.

* * *

They turned a corner, just as the two raiders spilled out of the destroyed door. The chatter of fire filled the alley and smashed the brickwork, as Erin threw them both behind a set of rusted trash cans and blindly fired back. One shot, two- click! Her magazine had run dry. As luck would have it however, at that precise moment, the return fire stopped. She could hear the raiders calling to one another.

"I thought you said you'd cover me, asshole, not shoot at me!"

"You ran right into it! And I missed anyway, quit bitching."

"Fucking whatever! Hurry up before she shoots back!"

"I'm reloading! Fucking Christ, woman!"

They thought she still had ammo. Thank God for seconds of breathing space. "R-reload, I've got to re-load-!" Erin gasped, reaching for her back to fumble with the contents, but her companion had already yanked it open and passed her a handful of fresh magazines, just the effort alone causing him to break out in a cold sweat. It was clear that they were only going to slow down… Suddenly, a flash of inspiration lit up Erin's mind. "Hold still!" she gasped, flapping out the curtains she had saved from her first night alone and throwing them over the man and her bag. "Just… H-hide here a little while! I'll try and draw them off! I'll be back soon, I promise!"

The rattle of gunfire sprayed down the alley again, making Erin's heart leap into her throat. Her knees were shaking, her joints locked, but still she forced her body to move. Pull the bolt back on her pistol and slip it into a small niche; let the empty magazine fall limply to the ground with a tinny clatter; press in the new magazine with trembling hands; miss the slot and try again; un-latch the bolt and let it snap forward… There, she'd re-loaded. It felt like it had taken half an hour just to perform the simple action!

* * *

The raider's fire slackened off. He was probably giving space for his friend to move closer with that heavy tire iron. Luckily, she seemed to be as much a coward as Erin herself. Erin shook that thought from her mind, revolted at the idea that there would be even a trace of similarity between her and that murderous thug! She peeked out from around the corner and had to swallow a scream at how close the raider was! The woman was leaping out from behind a pile of twisted metal that had once been a fire escape and was only seconds from their hiding place! In desperation and reflex, Erin fired a wild shot, causing the woman to trip over herself, falling back into cover.

"I thought you said she was out!"

"I thought YOU said you had this! She can't shoot for shit, just rush her!"

"YOU fucking rush her!"

The gunfire started again, a veritable storm of lead zipping past the entrance to the alley. Flecks of cement and brick filled the air, showering down on Erin and scratching at her exposed skin as she cowered and blindly fired back in a move that probably wasn't even hurting her already appalling marksmanship. Finally, the lead rain stopped again, as the raider had to re-load. By the feel of things, Erin herself only had a single round left in the chamber. She had four more spare magazines, but no-where to hold them, except… She un-zipped the front of her jumpsuit a little (wondering why Vault-Tec didn't design the stupid thing with pockets) and stuffed the spare magazines inside. The metal was ice-cold against her skin, especially positioned just under her breasts. It sent a shiver up her spine, but they should be secure there, for her to move. Now she just had to take her courage in both hands and run!

* * *

Erin bunched her legs under her and fixed her sights on a stack of tires on the far side of the alley. That was it. She'd just get to there first. She held her breath and leapt, firing her last shot wildly to keep the raiders down. In a little over a second, she smashed hard into the wall, safe behind cover and immediately started fumbling to re-load.

"There she is! Oh, first mistake, last mistake, bitch!"

Just as the bolt snapped forward again, the gunfire started. She could feel the low-powered rounds hitting the stack of tires, a few even punching through the first side and hitting the second with enough force to bruise her, but by some miracle, none penetrated all the way. The fire stopped for a moment and Erin took her chance to continue her plan. She jumped up, already running for a new scrap of cover as she fired desperately. This time however, the raider with the gun was ready. Erin's panicked firing was doing nothing more than scaring the scenery, giving him plenty of room to lean out from around the doorway and squeeze the trigger tight. Lethal bullets buzzed through the air around Erin like hornets as she ran behind the dumpster, too afraid to slow down and cracking her head clean into the wall. As she blinked spots out of her eyes, she caught the woman calling back to the gunner.

"Wait, where's the other one got to?"

Not good. She had to keep their attention and lead them off, or the stained grey curtain wouldn't pass more than a casual glance. Without time to think, Erin took a breath and called as loudly as her breathless, nervous state would allow. "C-come on then! Come and get me, y-you… Jerks…" Her voice grew progressively quieter as she blushed at how pathetic her attempt at taunting hardened killers must have seemed.

"Fuckit. He's not going far. We'll grab the little angel first, then use him for target practice!"

* * *

Erin's plan worked a little _too_ well. As she ran and lured the pursuing pair away from their former quarry, Erin found herself dicing with death far too often for her to keep winning. Her collection of small scrapes and bruises continued to grow, as her clever plan turned into an increasingly desperate race to just survive. Her luck seemed to have run its course, as her flight ran right up against a chain-link fence, too tall to climb before they were upon her. Her only other path took her out into the street, but there was no other choice. Gasping for breath, Erin made a break for it, diving behind the long-motionless bulk of a car to catch even a moment's respite. Oddly enough, no bullets flew past her hiding place… Strange. Had she finally managed to shake them? Then suddenly it hit her; the car was atomic-powered! One bullet in the wrong place and she was sitting behind a small atom bomb! But as horrifying a thought as that was, if she wasn't being shot at, then that meant that the woman with the tire iron was… Erin screamed as she poked her head up and saw the female raider sprinting towards her, weapon overhead and a look of victorious fury on her face! Erin's finger tightened on instinct… Only for the hammer to click on an empty chamber. With a second to spare, she leapt away and ran full-tilt into the building behind her, barely even noticing her surroundings as she smashed through the employee's area, out the back door… And right into the worst place in the commonwealth she could possibly imagine at that moment.

* * *

Raiders. Five of them. For a moment, they were stunned, staring at her with playing cards in hand, a bottle halfway to their lips, or a dog-ended cigarette dropping ash to the ground… Then, all hell broke loose. Erin lunged to one side and started running, just as her pursuer's grasping fingers glanced off her head and she went stumbling over Erin's backmost foot, into the group that was scrambling for their weapons. Erin, now in a blind panic, took off faster than she had ever run before, her breath burning her lungs! She turned and twisted through the alleys, onto the street and down it, her legs pounding the cracked and dusty asphalt, as angry voices and gunfire followed her. By some miracle, she was unharmed, but rational thought had fled her mind. A cracked and broken window offered the chance of somewhere to hide and she took it, leaping through and feeling the shards of glass that still clung to the frame, scratch at her suit's tough boots and cuffs. She hand landed in a lobby of some kind, for a larger building. Perfect! Erin scrambled on all fours, looking for somewhere to hide. Under the receptionist desk was too obvious. The broom closet? Where was it?! Wait… There! An elevator door, partially ajar. Erin scrambled on all fours, picked herself up and just managed to squeeze inside the elevator car, as the raiders smashed open the door, or jumped through the windows after her. Their pounding feet slowed, as they cast their predatory gazes over the old and broken furniture, searching for her.

"Look around," spat one hefting a short, double-barrelled shotgun. "She can't have got far."

The raiders slowly dispersed, checking behind chairs and under desks, kicking over trashcans and restlessly aiming their weapons at dark corners. As one, a man with a bare chest, wearing a sackcloth mask and holding a pipe rifle, slowly worked his way towards her, Erin realised she was trapped. Any moment now, he'd look inside the elevator and see her and there was no way to escape the way she came in. In desperation, she cast her eyes about, looking for a miracle and as she glanced upwards, her prayers were answered. The emergency hatch was open. As quietly as she could, Erin braced herself on the handrail and strained, pulling herself up with surprising ease and heaving through onto the roof of the car. The door to the next floor was fully open and she crawled out onto her belly, into a darkened office area, divided into cubicles. There were already feet on the stairs; she had bought herself maybe seconds, if that!

* * *

Erin crept forward. Perhaps she could sneak past and find another way- Suddenly, a raider appeared at the end of the aisle she was crouched in, his head thankfully turned the other way. With her heart thumping like a jackhammer, Erin squeezed herself under one of the desks and silently prayed to anyone that was listening… The raider's footsteps drew closer and closer, slowly and quietly creeping towards her hiding place. Closer… Closer..! He was right on top of her! She could reach out and touch his foot! Erin held her breath, convinced he could hear her breathing. The raider stopped.

"Wait a second…"

This was it. Her luck had run out. Erin's vision swam as tears of fear burned her eyes.

"Ah shit… Shit-!"

Wait, was he backing away? Then Erin heard a sound that froze her blood in her veins. A horrid, rasping, animal snarl.

"Feral! Ferals!"

The raider turned and ran, but before he had got more than a few paces, something else blurred past the end of Erin's hiding place and leapt. The raider's scream turned into a death rattle, as it was overwhelmed by the rattling scream of inhuman hunger and hate. Erin scrambled out of her den and looked in horror at the thing that hunched over the raider's body, tearing at his flesh with ragged fingernails and fingers worn down to the bone! It had perhaps been human once, but now its decayed, almost mummified flesh was drawn tight against withered muscle and bone beneath! Preston had mentioned 'ghouls' in passing, but Erin hadn't had the courage to ask and had passed it up as just a euphemism. Now, seeing one in the rotten flesh, revulsion crept up in her throat, as she realised too late that this was all it could be!

* * *

Erin tip-toed backwards, trying to re-load her pistol as quietly as possible, as she tried to make for the stairs, the threat of the raiders forgotten, in the face of the undead horror before her. But then she learned a lesson that every Commonwealther had burned into memory through long repetition by their elders, or else horrifying first-hand experience: There's never just one feral. Suddenly, they were everywhere, crawling from holes in the ceiling, or rising from where they had lain like unassuming corpses. As their scarred eyes searched for their prey, Erin wordlessly turned on her heel and bolted. Everywhere, she could hear the hunting calls of the ferals and the desperate fight of the raiders. Gunshots rang out; either the rattle and crack of pipe weapons, or the more occasional boom of a shotgun, mixed with screams and cries of anger, pain or fear.

Erin fled down the stairs, taking them two, then three at a time, leaping over the prone form of tire-iron, as she wrestled to keep a feral from sinking its yellow teeth into her face. She made for the door, but a heavy weight struck against her and knocked her flying, only barely holding onto her weapon! A raider had stumbled back, struggling with the ghoul clinging to him like a frenzied animal, sinking his knife into its body over and over, as he tried to push its head back. Erin watched in horror as a second loomed behind him and sank its teeth into his neck, even as its fingers clawed the raider's eyes bloody. Fresh nightmares blooming in her mind like a bouquet of monstrous flowers, Erin scrambled up and ran for the open door and the freedom it promised. Just as she reached it, a ghoul took interest in her, charging from her right, its arms outstretched, reaching for her throat! There was no time to think; only to act. With less than a meter between them, even firing from the hip, Erin couldn't miss. The first shot clipped the horror's shrunken stomach. The second split its palm and exited at the elbow. The third smashed its hip and sent it stumbling and the fourth and fifth ploughed right into its chest, ending its zombie-like existence. Erin didn't stop for even an instant, sprinting through the door and as far from the frenzied pack as she could, horror frozen on her features.

* * *

The man was right where she had left him. Step by faltering step, Erin had worked her way back, her adrenaline crashing now she was out of immediate danger, only to jump again at every tiny noise, as every shadow became a phantom ghoul ready to strike. As she pulled the blanket away, Erin's heart turned to lead. She could tell that even with the benefit of stimpacks, he wasn't going to last long. His eyes fluttered open as he looked up at her.

"You came…" he rasped.

Erin nodded mutely and leant down, lifting him away from the wall and embracing him, for all the filth and blood covering his body and clothes and filling the air with the rank stench of suffering. The young man was too weak, or too shocked to protest the long hug, but finally, he spoke up.

"Please… Sunlight."

The alley was no place for someone to die. With exhausted, painful slowness, Erin helped him into the street, under the shattered street lights and clear sky. He looked up at the bright sun, no longer caring for the pain it caused his eyes.

"Y-your…" Erin hiccupped and took a shaking breath. "What's your name?"

"Jason," he sighed, every word coming slower than the last. "Wh… What's yours?"

"Erin. I-I'll remember it, Jason."

"Thank you. My- My mom… County Crossing…"

"I'll tell her."

"Thank you…"

Minutes later, Jason's breath stopped and his eyes closed, as his head lay in Erin's lap. With no more tears left to shed, she carried his body to the nearest home that looked like it wouldn't immediately cave in. She laid him on the threadbare carpet on the living room floor and did her best to barricade every hole she could. No ghoul or raider would disturb Jason's rest if she could help it. Finally, she jammed the door shut and twisted the handle off with a heavy wrench. The house had become a tomb for one more.


	7. Chapter 7 - To the Survivor, the Spoils

Erin staggered as she tried to walk away. With the threat of gunfire and the ghouls now gone, her former adrenaline rush was crashing hard. Her vision was darkening at the edges and her limbs felt like they had been replaced by lead. She was shocked how fast it had fallen upon her as well-! Barely had she stepped away from Jason's tomb and taken a breath, when all the panic that had been sustaining her throughout her flight and the desperate scuffle with the ghouls drained from her like water from a spilled bucket. Her shoulder knocked against a lamppost as she swayed drunkenly and it spun her around, pitching her to the ground and momentarily re-awakening her primal survival instinct, as visions of being pounced on by those feral, cannibalistic ghouls assaulted her mind. If anything, the sudden spike in panic, followed by another crash, as she realised she was in no danger, only served to make matters worse. The cycle of panic and crash continued as Erin tried her best to leave the town's crumbling corpse and became thoroughly lost in the process. Only sheer, animal aversion kept her from blundering into the ghoul-infested interior of Lexington.

* * *

Before long, her staggering walk, dragging her body in any direction it would accept, had Erin utterly lost. She needed to rest – to find somewhere safe where she could let her energy return, but as yet, her luck had not availed her. Anywhere to rest would do. She could no-longer trust the houses, as any one of them might be hiding the flesh-eating monstrosities. Erin stumbled to a stop and blinked. She recognised this… By sheer luck (likely the last of it she was apt to have for a while), she had come full-circle, to the same camp she had blundered into during her initial attempt to draw the raiders away from Jason. A fire still burned low in the trash can, surrounded by the overturned chairs and picnic table the raiders had been sitting at. Through a broken window and doorless frame, she could see where the raiders had made themselves at home in an old post office. In spite of the mess, the promise of at least a little safety, even in a place formally inhabited by murderers and thieves, filled Erin with an overwhelming sense of relief. The raiders themselves were unlikely to return after their encounter with the horde of ravenous, living corpses, but their home had to be at least somewhat safe from them. Erin stepped forward, eager for a chance to lay dow-

SNAP!

Erin pitched forward onto the ground, clutching at her leg and screaming in the sudden shock of agony! In instinct, she tried to scramble away, but a sudden wrench of fresh pain forced a smothering blackness over her vision as she retched in shock and fear. Looking down, Erin's eyes widened in horror, as she saw the steel jaws of a rusted bear trap clamped around her leg. Blood so a dark red, it looked almost black, oozed from where one of the teeth had sunk through her jumpsuit's boot. She whimpered a loud, inarticulate denial of the shock and the pain, pulling at her leg, trying to wrench it free in panic. The short chain fastening the trap to a drainpipe jerked her leg to a stop, igniting new, all-consuming torture that brought the retching taste of bile to her throat. Erin collapsed as if she were puppet with cut strings, sobbing on the ground and fighting the overwhelming desire to black out and let oblivion leech the pain away. Her fingers were clumsy, as she reached down, tugging at the jaws, trying to force them apart. "Come on-! COME ON!" she screamed through gritted teeth, choking on her tears, "PLEASE!" Her hands scraped raw on the sharp, rusted edges. The spikes themselves were blessedly, fairly dull from age, but the slow, thick stream from where one had punched into her leg, soon made her hands slick with blood. Panic gripped her in icy claws, constricting her vision down to a pinprick as her efforts grew more and more frantic.

* * *

Erin woke in a cold sweat. As she swayed and sat up, dread seized her limbs with the unflinching grasp of iron chains. In spite of her struggling, she had still blacked out, lying there helpless in the alley. The shadows hadn't moved, so she couldn't have been out especially long, but still, she had lain there, helpless and bleeding and she was starting to feel light-headed. She had to get free and fast. She couldn't just tear herself loose; no matter what strength she had mysteriously gained, these traps were designed to hold a struggling bear! Erin reached down, unable to stop herself from whimpering as the heavy iron trap weighed on her tormented leg. She'd never seen a bear trap in person before and tears kept clouding her vision, making her wipe them away with the back of her hand, but there had to be a way to get it free. The arms on the sides-! Those were the springs that held the trap closed! So all she had to do was press them down and she'd be able to pull free. Little did Erin know that her luck was still holding, just a little: Had she been caught be a true bear trap, there would have been no way to press the springs down far enough, but this trap had been designed for smaller prey, not that the raiders, or Erin, had known the difference. Wincing once more, as the awkward movement twisted her trapped leg and made her vision spin, Erin pushed her free foot down on one of the springs, inching it down, while she pressed her hands onto the other and applied her weight. Little by little, she grew to thank any god listening for the strength and fitness she had been unexpectedly blessed with, as the springs gave way. One of the trap's arms fell at once, but the other remained, the tooth stuck in her leg. The pain was nauseating and Erin started to sweat and shake, as she cautiously removed one hand from the spring and tugged the arm free. The metal spike came free with a sickening, sticky resistance and the moment it was, Erin yanked her leg back and let the trap snap shut once more.

* * *

Free of the restricting spike, the slow ooze of blood was now a steady pulse. Erin clamped a hand down on the wound, heaving with sobs of mixed relief and pain, before the urgent realisation of just how much blood she was losing, forced her into action. With one hand, she tore her bag open and snatched out one of the precious stimpaks. She was in too much pain to worry about how sanitary the needle could be after rattling around in her bag, or whatever tender fate it had endured before Sturges had found it and handed it to her; besides, the life-saving drugs it contained should combat anything too bad. After her experience with the trap, the thought of pushing the tiny needle into her leg probably shouldn't have been much cause for concern, but even so, Erin hesitated, flinching at the thought for a moment, before pushing the needle in. Almost at once, there was a soft hiss and the dial topping the syringe ticked down to empty. In her half-delusional state, Erin thought she could almost feel the wonderful medicine stitching her skin back together and fusing the bone that was surely cracked. She sat hunched against the wall for another five minutes, keeping pressure on her wound, as the stimpak's coagulants did their work and stopped the bleeding. Her hand was gooey as she pulled it away, with half-dried blood coating her palm and fingers. Erin winced and used a little of her precious water to clean her hands, before taking a few long gulps to combat the thirst the stimpak had left her with. Only after she was clean, did she realise what a waste it had been and cursed her vanity. At least her jumpsuit was mostly stainproof. Still not trusting her leg with any kind of weight, Erin crawled her way inside the post office. The sleeping bag on a tatty old mattress was about the most wonderful sight in the world to her at that moment, as she crawled onto it and collapsed, no longer caring if the safety of the camp was real or imagined. All Erin knew was that she needed to sleep.

* * *

Fear woke Erin long before she wished for consciousness. Her sleep had been fitful, but even the few hours she had snatched had worked wonders. Her leg still ached, but it was tolerable now and rolling up her jumpsuit, she was relieved to see that the hole had already congealed into a gooey, dark-red scab, beneath which, the stimpack was still quickly repairing damaged tissue and muscle. Erin pushed herself up, clinging onto the shelves for support, as she tested her leg. It felt like it was healed enough to stand her weight, even though the pain was enough to make her limp. Without the miracle of modern medicine, in conditions like this, she'd have been lucky to keep her life, much less expect to walk without a limp by the next day!

The sun was already beginning to sink, turning the world to a burning orange hue that made Erin shiver from far more than just the cold the evening brought. Little-by-little, she carefully combed the small courtyard in the back street she had entered by. The front of the post office was solidly barricaded, so anyone who wanted to come in, would have to do so through the back. Her search revealed that she had been lucky to miss a second trap during her initial sprint through the area. The door she had first burst through had been locked, but apparently not very sturdy… Erin jammed one of the chairs against it, hopefully keeping it closed. Low-strung barbed wire triplines covered the only remaining route out into the street, easily missed in the gathering gloom. Much of the meal the raiders had abandoned was now charred beyond recognition over their impromptu trashcan barbeque, but a handful of small skewers, adorned with uncooked meat, stood ready to grill. Erin hesitated for a moment, before shaking her head and stirring the embers. Paranoid as she was, there was no way those raiders were eating _human_ meat, right? As it turned out, whatever was on the skewers tasted a little like duck, or possibly lamb. With her stomach full and the light vanishing fast, Erin sipped a little more of her water and barricaded a small back room, after dragging her new bed inside. The quiet night was full of fresh new terrors, now the spectre of those crawling, leering ghouls haunted Erin's nightmares, making her toss and turn fitfully in her sleep.

* * *

At long last, morning came. In spite of everything, sleep had finally claimed Erin and she awoke, staring at her Pip Boy's clock as it gradually ticked through the minutes. She didn't want to get up. She didn't want to leave. She didn't want to walk back out into the commonwealth, to face pain and death and fear. But she couldn't stay here either, slowly starving, walled into a tiny room… Death seemed to wait for her no matter her choice. Erin's eyes rested on the butt of her pistol… Suddenly, she sat bolt upright, scrambling away and turning as she vomited into the corner. No. NO! She would NOT let herself think like that! A shiver colder than ice water shot through her as she coughed and heaved. Why had she even bothered living through yesterday, if she was going to-? She was going to live. No matter what, she had to survive.

Within Erin's mind, the stress of the last few days mixed with the chemicals her strange growth spurt had sent running through her brain and finally started to coalesce. She was going to live. The first fragile seeds of determination started to sprout, stilling the trembling in her limbs and the hammering in her heart. Erin faced a choice between succumbing, to despair, death, injury or fear and instead chose to be a survivor.

She clutched the gun and slowly slid her barricade aside, peeking out the door. It was just past seven in the morning and the sun had just finished slipping over the horizon, shining through the cracks in the boarded windows and casting deep and long-fingered shadows across the abandoned raider den. Erin carefully slipped out, holding her breath and listening for any sign of life that might seek to end hers. All there was, was a single crow, pecking at the discarded burnt skewers she had tossed aside the night before. It regarded her with beady black eyes, before deciding she was too lively to serve as a main course and taking to its wings with a disgusted caw. Erin followed its flight for a moment, before letting her held breath with a gasp and setting her mind. These raiders had to have supplies lying around and she wasn't going to lose any sleep from stealing from them, even if they were alive to need it. A quick search of the sleeping area uncovered _far_ more than she ever wanted to know about the former occupants disgusting personal habits, but littered through bags, tossed into corners, or even shockingly, neatly laid out on a counter, Erin scrounged together whatever useful odds and ends she could.

* * *

Ammunition was a priority; she hadn't even picked up the discarded magazines from her running battle and even if she had, she only had two dozen bullets left. Fortunately, it seemed Sturges hadn't been wrong about finding .32 calibre by the bucket. All told, between loose mags, dropped rounds and a few faded pre-war boxes, Erin managed to scrape together over a hundred spares. Food and medicine were equally important. Preserved food was in short supply, but the raiders seemed to have done fairly well at hunting and gathering some wild food. The tatos, Erin left where they were, remembering all too well their horrible taste in Sanctuary, but the mutated carrots and corn were tossed into her bag, as some meat of dubious origin went over the grill, in the hopes that cooking it could make it last longer. Erin tried not to think about what the radiation in her food was probably going to do to her insides…

Medicine was a slightly more dear resource, it seemed. Three irreplaceable stimpaks, alongside some over-the-counter antibiotics and some bandages that really needed boiling before Erin felt comfortable using them… Quite a few empty syringes and one remaining un-used dose suggested that one of the raiders had been badly addicted to the painkiller med-x, but most important to her, was the dog-eared copy of the Massachusetts Surgical Journal, proudly boating a special on 'Anaesthesia and you'. Her own limited medical knowledge was a liability, even falling apart as it was, the periodical was definitely welcome. Erin carefully slipped it into her bag and sighed. What had once been something of minor interest, to be glanced over in a hospital waiting room, now represented something beyond price - a fragment of knowledge most of the world had forgotten it even once knew. That one magazine probably represented the sum total of its former owner's expertise in medicine.

With her bag now actually starting to weigh a little, even given her inexplicable fitness, Erin was about to cut her search short, when the final room made her stop in shock. The wall had been knocked away, either by the raiders, or centuries before, opening out onto a lower rooftop, between the post office and its next neighbour. A stretch of scaffolding lead down into the backstreet, but at the lip of the roof, stood a filthy cage, made from corrugated metal, wires and bolted wood. Scattered around were the remains of the raiders cruel entertainment, stained with blood or seared black by heat… Erin remembered Jason's pitiful condition, as he first crawled from the alley, piecing together his torture with eyes that couldn't comprehend the sheer inhumanity of the evidence of human suffering before her. Wordlessly, she saw him in her mind's eye, painfully pull his hands from the improvised manacles in the cage, then squeeze his emaciated frame through the bars and wire, before desperately crawling away… The day before, seeing it would have had her turn in fear and revulsion, running for her life from the scene of such torture, but now… Tears hotter than burning coals stung Erin's eyes and her fists shook with frustrated rage. With a shock, she realised that she was _glad_ the raiders had been slaughtered and even more appallingly, she realised not only was she _glad_ , but she didn't even mind her callous vindication! No-one who had done such things to another human had any right to sympathy.

* * *

As Erin returned downstairs, a last treasure caught her eye as she was passing. Through the grille of a metal door, a large steamer trunk was just visible. Immediately, Erin's mind made a connection to 'treasure chest' and she tried the handle. Locked, of course and the key was probably on one of the raider's bodies. She frowned in annoyance, but memories of old detective films and novels brought something to mind. She'd found a small box of a few bobby pins while exploring… She fished one out of her hair and bent it out of shape, carefully poking it into the lock and twisting back and forth. There was no way this was going to work, surely-?

Click.

Erin's eyes widened and she cast around for something to turn the cylinder, eyes wide with excitement. A few minutes later, she dashed back with a screwdriver and had to contain her eagerness, as she found the position again and carefully twisted… The pin snapped, but she wasn't about to be denied! The second of her few precious lock-picks took its place and this time, with patience and care, the door opened.

The contents of the trunk were nothing special at first glance. A few precious keepsakes from the raiders' past victims and a few dozen bottlecaps that Erin remembered just in time that Preston had told her were the currency now. Hardly much of a treasure trove, but amid the clothes at the bottom of the chest, Erin discovered something very much welcome – armour. It was only a collection of leather straps and plates, but what else could it be described as? Given how dangerous life had become lately, Erin was more than glad to pull it on. Tough, segmented leather plates covered her shoulders and right wrist (the Pip Boy on her left prevented her symmetry); kneepads and shinguards protected her legs and across her chest, the belts held a single plate in place over her right breast. It wasn't over her heart, but the protection brought a world of relief to Erin, even if even the hard, solid leather probably wouldn't stop a bullet. More useful still were the pockets and pouches attached to the belts, letting her re-distribute the weight of her hear and providing a slightly more convenient place to stash her ammunition than under her vault suit. There was even a holster for her pistol, finally! Erin couldn't help herself from posing a little as the new armour made her feel a little like some sort of action hero…

* * *

At long last, it was time to leave. The raiders' campground was as looted as it was going to get and Erin was as prepared as she would ever be. The wound on her leg had healed to a large, pockmark scar and she no longer felt pain from walking on it, so there was nothing keeping her here. Again, she considered turning back to Sanctuary, but she'd already come this far and her mind was made up to survive. If she was going to do that, she had to find out what Vault-Tec had done to her body. Erin straightened her back and walked forward into the early afternoon light. She was resolved and ready and had already lived through the worst. Whatever was waiting for her, she was ready!

As it turned out, what was waiting for her, was a rather large, almost hairless, probably rabid and most certainly hostile dog, flanked by two others like it. All three of them had their savage eyes fixed on Erin, as she strode right out in front of them. Her confident feeling immediately evaporated at the sight of the mongrels' bared teeth. In her frail happiness at finding so much to aid her had made Erin forget for a moment exactly the nature of the place she was in and just how vulnerable she was when her guard was down.

"Niiice doggy?" she tried, slowly backing into the alley.

The dog flattened its ears and growled.


	8. Chapter 8 - Nightmares and Narcotics

The ruins of Lexington retreated steadily, as Erin made her way step-by-step towards Boston. The wild dogs had been tenacious, but relatively simple to evade by running back through the post office and up, across the roofs. That horrible cage had served one final purpose as she had leapt off its side to reach the lip of the roof above. Once they couldn't follow her, Erin simply carefully made her way across the slopes and clambered down through a ruined home, onto the street once more. The brush had made Erin realise how vulnerable she was however, even with her new armour and Sturges' pistol. One starving dog, desperate enough to attack a human would have been bad enough, but a pack of three? She just couldn't face that many directions at once! She needed to be more alert to dangers, even free of the backstreets and ghoul-infested buildings of Lexington. Danger could be upon her at any moment! As if to cement her beliefs, the sound of an animal in distress reached Erin's ears. She immediately crouched, casting about for the source of the noise. Down the hill, just beneath the overpass, what looked like a grotesque, two-headed mutant cow, was writhing and pitching about. For a moment, Erin thought it must have been caught in another trap, but as she watched, a huge stinger arose from the dusty ground, quickly followed by an equally massive scorpion, its pincers clamped tight around the cow's foreleg. The stinger jabbed forward, two, three, four times, before the mutant cow finally grew still and the predator could eat. Erin gulped nervously and decided from that moment on, to stay on the roads…

* * *

Sticking to the roads proved to be harder than Erin expected however. She'd come this way several times herself, to get to the campus, but it had never been this rocky or hilly and the slopes had definitely not been so steep! Had the blasts been so great that they had smashed the ground even this far-? Where had the bomb even landed, come to that? She remembered glimpsing one detonate, before she and everyone else on that platform had ducked, or thrown themselves to the ground… Well at least after two centuries, the radiation should have almost totally faded. Erin shielded her eyes from the sun, as she peered at the Boston skyline. It didn't look like the city had been hit directly, at least? Suddenly, she blinked, as she realised she could see the silhouettes of men on the highway overpass and Erin pressed herself behind the rusted frame of a car that had long-ago been gutted by fire. She had to squint against the sun, but they all looked armed and with more than the shoddy pipe weapons the raiders had been. Could these be the gunners that Preston had mentioned had destroyed an entire town? It could be and with their vantage point, Erin could be easily picked off if she tried to test their friendliness. She decided to go around, crawling away and wishing her suit wasn't quite so blue, given how it stood out in the sparse green grass. For the first time as well, she was acutely aware of the curvature of her new behind… Even though she knew it wasn't anywhere near what she imagined, a part of her mind was convinced that her rounder cheeks may as well have had a target painted on them for any enterprising sniper.

The gathering darkness made Erin a harder target, as she slowly worked her way off the road (ever wary of something horrible clawing out of the dust) and then back south, but it did nothing to dispel her nerves. If anything, she was becoming ever more agitated. Every small sound was enough to make her freeze and wait, clutching her pistol and slowing her travel even more. By the time she had reached the road again, there was barely enough light to see by. There was no way she was going to make it to Cambridge that night, so she'd have to find shelter on the open road. The only question was where… As she sat behind the railing, Erin's alert ears picked up a heavy, regular thudding, getting gradually closer and closer. She shrank further into the darkness, hiding behind the remains of a streetlight on one side and the barrier on the other. Coming down the road towards her at a steady stride was something big, metal and with a swaying headlamp sweeping the road ahead. As it drew closer, Erin's jaw dropped. Power armour. Someone was wearing a full set of T-60 military power armour, still perfectly functional, despite two hundred years! The looming figure cut an intimidating sight in the dusk light, cradling a laser rifle in his hands and marching purposefully toward Cambridge with clearly no intention of stopping for the night.

* * *

As it neared Erin's hiding place, the armoured figure's tread abruptly stopped. Erin held her breath, afraid that any movement or sound at all would give her away as she tried her hardest to _will_ herself invisible. The beam of the headlamp swung over the grass and dirt and metal as the evening insects chirped. Just as she couldn't hold it any longer, the stranger seemed to give up, turning and resuming its steady tread down the road. Erin slowly let out a sigh of relief and watched him go. He had an unfamiliar symbol on his chest that she caught a glimpse of as he turned – a sword over three gears and ringed by wings. He was probably part of some larger group, but if they had power armour, she was going to stay as far from them as possible, if there was even a chance they weren't friendly.

* * *

With the armoured titan safely a mile down the road, Erin stood and stretched, groaning and gritting her teeth. Despite being mostly healed, her leg was still sore after spending an entire day walking and so long curled into a ball. The light was well and truly gone now, but her Pip Boy screen made a great improvised flashlight as she searched for a place to safely sleep. She couldn't stay in the open, as even if she knew how to light a fire from scratch, the light would be seen from miles away and who even knew if mutated creatures even still feared fire? If the worst came to the worst, she could always try hiding inside one of the abandoned cars… The abrupt appearance of a truck from the gloom made Erin jump, almost as much as the leering grin of the skeletal driver leaning through the window. It was kind of amazing, in a morbid way, how well it was holding together after two hundred years… The trailer the unfortunate trucker had once been hauling however, was a greater godsend. Although it had long ago been pried open and anything of value hauled away, the shell still provided shelter from the weather and more importantly, from wild and hungry animals.

Erin crept inside the trailer, turning over a decaying cardboard box with her foot. A few insects and a scabrous-looking rat scuttled for cover, as she sighed and resigned herself to her temporary bedroom. If this kept up, she's just have to get used to the idea of living with a sore back. It wasn't as if she could carry a mattress with her everywhere she went, after all, but even a sleeping bag rather than these tattered curtains would be a godsend. Erin pushed the few remaining boxes out of the way (containing mostly stationary supplies, it seemed) and curled up, her makeshift blankets around her as she shut off her Pip Boy's light and closed her eyes. Sleep was elusive however and the cold, hard floor of the trailer uncomfortable. It was impossible not to compare _then_ to _now_. A warm, soft bed, to a creaking trailer; a Salisbury steak meal or ready-made apple pie, to scavenged mystery meat and dirty water; friendly neighbours and bustling streets, to hiding from murderers and fleeing living corpses. Erin bit the inside of her cheek, as she trembled and tried to hold back the fresh sobs that had crept upon her in her miserable state, choking and coughing as her long minutes of wakefulness gave time for all the horrors of the last few days to close in on her again and that wasn't even touching on the echoing, nameless dread of two centuries of missed, post-apocalyptic history hanging over her and laughing like some cruel titan of myth. In the end, sleep at last came, but even that was plagued by fresh terrors, as the world burned black that was brilliantly bright and men drenched in blood and wearing leering smiles, raised hooks and knives and killed endlessly, their humanity sloughing from them like their skin until they were nothing but walking, rotting corpses that as one, set their sunken eyes on Erin, transfixing her as they advanced like jerky, remorseless corpse-puppets-!

* * *

Erin woke with a start and a scream that she couldn't tell was deemed or real. Her breath misted in front of her as she panted, clutching the blankets around her and silently affirming that she was awake and her dreams couldn't touch her. It was cold in a way that seeped through her blankets and even the insulated vault suit and settled right in her bones. She checked the green glow of her Pip Boy and sighed as it told her it was half-past just late enough to not bother going back to sleep and a quarter-to anything approaching an hour she'd like to be awake. Still, now she was awake (and the thought of retreating into a place where those dreams could reach her sent a reflexive flinch down her spine), she might as well start moving. Erin gathered her things and headed to the back of the truck, tugging at the door she had rolled down the night before. "Oh you have got to be kidding me," she muttered. She tugged a second time, then set her feet and heaved, applying all her new body's greater strength to the task and nearly straining something in her back. The roller door wouldn't budge. Of course. What a wonderful way to start the day. Erin sighed in exasperation and looked for another way out, quickly spotting a hatch in the roof that could be opened from the inside, presumably for when someone foolishly got themselves in the exact situation she had. She had to stand on tip-toe to pop the hatch open and then jump and cling on by her fingers to painstakingly pull herself up and out. As uncomfortable as it was to admit, every little challenge and difficulty she faced made Erin more and more aware that having a body that was actually somewhat athletic (and tall and attractive for that matter), was the only thing that had allowed her to stay alive in the post-apocalypse. As horrible as the thought of being changed without her knowledge was, she had to admit that in an odd way, whatever Vault-Tec had done to her had been a gift.

* * *

The world outside the trailer was cold and white. Thick fog clung to the land as if a cloud had fallen from the sky, shrouding the world in mystery and even seeming to muffle sounds in an insubstantial blanket. Erin slid down the side of the truck and peered around, closing her eyes and taking a long breath before opening them again. Like this, she could almost pretend that the world hadn't changed. The cars and shapes looming in the fog weren't wrecks and ruins; just quiet and still… It was a pleasant fantasy to indulge in as she resumed her lonely journey towards Boston. First however, she had to pass through Cambridge. Two centuries before, it had been a nice town, just over the river from Boston proper and home to the Commonwealth Institute of Technology. It had been a hell of a commute, but Erin had just finished her sophomore year there when everything went to hell. Nowadays, if the weather had been clearer, she probably could have seen the cracked ruin from where she stood on a slight hill.

* * *

The lurking horrors in Lexington had made Erin somewhat nervous about walking right into the middle of the town a second time, especially with her visibility so poor in the fog. Instead, she stuck to the edge of the town, trying to find a route that looked the clearest, even though after she crossed the river, she'd be even deeper into the heart of Boston and danger.

"How can anyone expect to live in a place like this?" Erin whimpered, peering into the obscuring whiteness. If her last encounter with the locals was anything to go by, then the only halfway civil people in the world were the ones she'd left behind back in Sanctuary… The electric buzz and flicker of a sign cut through her thoughts, causing her gaze to drift upwards. Neon tubes blinked in the shape of a green cross over the door to a shop, but the sign looked like it had been haphazardly fixed in place after the earlier one had been torn off. "A pharmacy? Maybe they'll have some antiseptic…" Erin blinked and shook herself as she realised she was talking to herself; it had just slipped out while she was distracted with worrying. Her grip on sanity seemed to be weakening worryingly, after all the stress.

The door to the pharmacy had long since lost any glass in its frame, as had its windows, but they had been replaced by nailed plywood. In one of the covered windows, someone had used white paint to splash broad letters on the boarding. 'Chems 4 sale. Thieves will be SHOT!' The warning gave Erin pause for a moment, before she gently pushed on the door. Whoever had painted the sign couldn't have survived long anyway-

"Huh? Hey, where'd you come from?"

Or maybe they had and were scrambling up from an old lawn chair, reaching for a shotgun and blinking blearily at Erin like she'd appeared out of thin air – that was possible too.

Erin flinched and held up her hands. She was caught in the open with no-where to run, so all she could really do was squeeze her eyes shut and wait for the shock. "I'm not a thief-!" she squeaked, amazed she wasn't tripping over her words in panic. "I-I just wanted to buy some medicine!"

"Not a-? Huh?" The man's shotgun slowed halfway to pointing square at Erin's chest. Its owner looked at least less savage than the raiders. He wore a threadbare, chequered shirt, patched many times over and over the years, while his pants were equally so ancient that any colour they once possessed had long since worn out. His black hair was a lank mess and dark stubble shaded the chin of a square face. "Then why're-? Oh! Oh right, a customer! Right…" The man's eyes kept slipping in and out of focus on Erin's face, idly gazing around the room before snapping back to her, as if he kept forgetting she existed. "Come on in, come on. We've got any kind of poison you wanna try, from jet to even a little psycho. 'Fact… Hold on a second." The man reached behind the counter and produced a small, cardboard box, shaking a paper packet from it. He picked a dull red pill from the paper and popped it into his mouth, swallowing and swigging from a hip flask before coughing and rasping harshly and shaking his head. "There we go. Much better! Sorry about that."

* * *

Erin recognised chalky red pills – the brain-enhancing drug 'mentats' had been a popular performance booster when she was at CIT, even if they had supposedly been restricted to prescription only… After the bombs fell however, she supposed such rules became even more ignored than they were in the dorms and bathrooms of the university. Still, seeing them taken so casually was just another small crack in her already fragile shell of familiarity.

"Nothing like a pick-me-up, am I right?" the man smiled, already looking more focused and alert. "Now how can I help you? Oh! The name's Oscar. I run the front of the store, while the others watch the road or take shifts out back."

"Ah- I'm Erin. Pleased to meet you." Erin offered her hand politely, relieved to at last meet someone outside Sanctuary, who wasn't immediately trying to kill her. Oscar's palm met hers with a solid smack as he grinned.

"Great stuff. So, what can I get for you today? You look like someone chasing a little mental boost, perhaps? Or maybe some buffout to keep everything fit and strong in the wild, woolly Commonwealth?"

"Uh-" Erin gulped, "Actually, I was just looking for some antiseptic, or maybe stimpaks?"

Oscar snorted, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, no. Listen girlie, this is a party shop, understand? We don't carry that lame-ass shit."

"But I thought this was a pharmacy?"

"It WAS a pharmacy," Oscar corrected her with a grin, holding up a finger to forestall argument. "We found it and figured, with all these raw chemicals lying around and our combined educations from all over, there's a hell of a market for something to take the edge off, right?"

"Take you for instance," he continued, appraising Erin as his mentat-enhanced brain picked up on tics and cues that might otherwise be missed, "You aren't looking so good, but it's not exactly something a stimpak can fix, am I right? You need some way to relax, but God knows, there's not too many of those out in the world, sooo…" He pulled a bundle of clattering keys from his pocket and popped open a secure cabinet behind him. Inside, Erin glimpsed shelves full of bottles, packets, syringes and tins, all containing pre-war drugs, or looking distinctly more home-made or recycled, before Oscar kicked it closed again. "Here we go. Life's a real bitch, but a little of this and the world's about a million times easier to cope with, am I right?" He shook a small, turquoise glass jar, covered by a label featuring several colourful flowers and a name. 'Daytripper'. Erin gulped. In one of her more misguided attempts to be social, she'd once allowed herself to be pressured into trying the drug. Daytripper was supposed to offer a 'happy escape' and as the world had spiralled towards its destruction, it had become more and more popular to take a capful of the stuff and forget all your troubles for a while. During her freshman year, Erin remembered sipping at a single spoonful, grimacing at the odd taste and drifting, giggling at everything… And then the hangover the next day when the amount of alcohol she'd been plied with made a re-appearance and her shut-in habits had returned. She'd never wanted or needed to take anything like it again ever since.

* * *

Erin reached for the bottle almost without noticing her arm was moving. Her fingers shook as she remembered the circle of other freshmen in the corner of the loud common-room, smiling and pushing the bottle and spoon towards her. She'd never wanted or needed it, but the memory of escaping… Of not caring, of seeing all the wonderful world…

Oscar tapped the bottle down on the counter, making Erin's gaze jerk away from her promised relief and to his face. "Sixty caps."

"What?!" Erin spluttered! If she took that much, she'd be dead inside of a minute!

"This isn't a charity I'm afraid," Oscar frowned. "It's sixty caps for the bottle, take it or…" he started to slide the bottle back towards him, "Leave it."

Of course, caps, currency. Erin closed her eyes and mentally shook herself for forgetting the small stash she'd picked out of the raiders' belongings. She quickly reached into one of the pouches on her armour and retrieved the back, spilling them onto the counter and counting them up. She could just about make the asking price, but it would clean her out almost completely. "I-I don't have enough," she whimpered, staring at the small circles of metal. "I can't afford-"

"Really?" Oscar remarked, quickly totalling the tokens with a practiced eye. "Looks to me like you've juuust got enough. Of course, if you don't wanna trip, hey, that's your call, right?" He let her watch as he poured the liquid ever-so-carefully into the bottle's orange cap and set it gingerly down in front of Erin's watching eyes. "But then this'd be going to waste... And you wouldn't even be thinking about it in the first place unless you wanted a bit of escape, right?" His voice was dangerous; poisonous even, but Erin couldn't help but listen.

She stared intently at the small capful of clear liquid, an oily sheen shifting over its surface. She didn't want to do this. She knew about how dangerous addiction was, even with modern recreational drugs, produced in a lab, rather than a run-down back-room. She closed her eyes and flinched, shivering at the memory of Jason's dying, mutilated body; or the grasping, dead fingers of the ghoul that had come so close to ending her life and in return, forced her to take its own.

She reached out, holding the cap in hands that now seemed eerily steady as she gazed at its rainbow sheen in the dusty light of the chem store. She opened her mouth and threw the viscous mixture down her throat before she could talk herself out of it.


	9. Chapter 9 - Bad Trip

**Captain Literate here**

 _I have at last started to feel halfway human again. You really, really do not want to know the laundry list of what has plagued me over the last few months. On the plus side, Erin's drug trip should be much more realistic now, as I'll be drawing from my own experiences. Regardless, a new chapter is at last here, after a hiatus I never wanted to take, for multiple reasons. I may also be revamping some of the earlier chapters to make a bit more sense, read a little better and to have everyone react and speak more realistically. You have no idea how hard it was to write the Sanctuary scene without anyone giving away if the Sole Survivor is Nate or Nora and I know that if I give it another look, I'll be able to find SOME way to make it seem more organic._

 _These author's notes may also become an occasional thing in future chapters. The reason I've stayed away from them thus far is that I feel they just give me a way to make excuses for late chapters, but now I've had an ACTUAL excuse, I kind of feel like it's a bit pointless to stay away from them. Plus, I feel I owe you guys (and girls, who knows,) an explanation when I change something from the canon. Mostly, that reason will be, "Bethesda didn't put much thought into this, did they?" but sometimes it may need a little more reasoning than that, if I can't fit said reasoning into the story. Still, I'll try to keep them light and only use them when I have to._

 _And with that, on with the main attraction. I really hope everyone is still interested in reading this._

* * *

Good daytripper slipped into your consciousness so subtly, you could hardly even notice it was there, until the lamp started writing French poetry. As the oily cocktail of chemicals sat in Erin's belly however, it hit like a heavyweight boxer. One instant, she was standing at the counter, waiting for it to kick in, the next, she was on her back, wondering where the intervening moments had gone. She was dimly aware that she had probably hit her head on the counter as the unfamiliar weights on her chest (now feeling more like balloons than anything else) had over-balanced her, but only an amusing tingling buzzed through her head that slowly grew as the flower on her forehead bloomed. The petals spun away like sycamore bracts as she watched the ceiling paint itself blue as the sky and giggled as the floating motes of dust in the air formed the clouds shaped like mushrooms and bacon and eggs…

Erin rolled back and forth and wagged her legs and feet until her hands found the edge of the counter and she was able to heave herself upright. As Oscar's head came into view, Erin nearly lost her grip, snorting and laughing at his swelling dome. Those mentats had really given him a big brain, it seemed!

Oscar joined in Erin's laughter at his own predicament and breathed a puff of red steam as he spoke. "Having fun there?"

Erin was about to reply, when something tinkled on the counter. Her paltry change in caps was there, including one that had just fallen like a raindrop and was spinning around and around and around and around, glittering shiny silver. It didn't seem to want to stop, but the naughty thing had to go back into her purse with the rest! Erin pressed her finger down on it and shooed it and all the others back into their bag. "Ohhh wow, I'm kinda feeling a little dizzy," she smiled, then laughed as her voice ran around in circles and spirals and fell over itself. "Just going to take a little walky walk and get everything straight, m'kay? M'kay."

"Don't touch anything," her new friend advised. Erin just snorted as she swayed her way to the back room. She wasn't dumb! Swaying was dangerous to her sense of balance, but she'd never had hips to do it before and it felt nice to try it out, like she was one of the pretty girls on the secretarial courses.

* * *

A radio was playing songs that made Erin want to dance. Down in a dark and spooky cave, the tune led her and the rats and the children in waaaay down a spiralling, twisting staircase that took forever to walk down, but when she reached the bottom, Erin stuck her tongue out as she twirled and looked back. The stairs had tricked her! They weren't that long at all and were straight and simple. Changing like that was cheating!

"Hey, who the hell is this?"  
A voice! Erin gasped and turned around, flapping her arms as she lost her balance and tried to stay upright on one leg. Ultimately, her effort was in vain; she wasn't a bird or even close to one. She had to grab onto a metal supporting pillar and slooowly slid down as she looked around for whoever had spoken.

With her vision suddenly snapping into focus, the basement's darkness shrunk back, like a showman pulling the cover from his creation. Amid the shelves and locked cabinets that had been savagely broken open, stood the cannibalised remains what had once been a fine pharmacy lab for mixing medicines. Now the dirty equipment had been supplemented by wasteland engineering; microscopes and purifiers lay side-by-side with ingeniously re-purposed gas tanks, wound with hose piping to form a condenser; or a centrifuge made from an old bicycle gear system hooked up to an improvised electric motor. The filthy PVC flooring and the peeling paint on the walls spoke of a place long since in need of maintenance and clearing, even before its current residents had converted it into a chem lab and let dirty Bunsen burners and boiling flasks of chemicals further stain the walls an oil slick of colours.

Its occupants seemed scarcely better suited to the building's once-noble purpose than its décor. Both wore dirty and tattered plastic aprons and kitchen gloves and had scarfs over their mouths as makeshift protective gear, on top of biker leathers, or in the case of the one confronting Erin, little more than a wifebeater, ratty pants with leather boots and spiked knee-pads. While his companion's head was shaved, this one sported a short Mohawk and a scowl, as he pulled down the filthy red scarf covering his mouth to make himself better heard.

* * *

"I said who the fuck are you?" he repeated, one hand resting on the butt of a small revolver strapped into a holster on his leg. "Can't you read the fuckin' sign? It says 'no entry' genius!"

"Sorry, sorry," Erin giggled. How could he be mad when the place had so many weird and fun smells that popped and fizzed in her nose like fireworks? She tried to pull herself up on the pole, but for some reason, her arms just couldn't lift her. "'M having a little tiny, itty wee bit of trouble."

"Jesus, you're high," the man sighed, before calling up the stairs. "HEY! Oscar, you stupid shit! Stop letting the customers down here, dammit!"

"Screw you," came the reply, "She's daytripping; she's not a problem!"

"So getting her in my hair is fine if it keeps her out of yours? Fuckin' typical," he groaned. His tone softened a little as he turned back to Erin, his hand dropping away from the taped metal grip of his firearm, now he was convinced she wasn't dangerous. "Look, lady, we're cooking here, so scram, got it?"

"Okie-dokie!" Erin smiled. "You know, you're a lot nicer than the jerks I've been meeting. All of you're just such… Nice, nice people." She rolled onto her front and tried paw at the stairs to pull herself up. Her hands kept slipping off as she continuously forgot about her thumbs however and progress was minimal… "I've been shot at," she continued, "Scared, nearly eated by zombies a-an' I've had Jason die right in my arms… The world suuucks now the bombs have fallen." She gave up trying to swim and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Christ… Lady, you are tripping hard, ain't ya?" The chem-dealer shook his head and

Erin nodded, smiling.

"I wanted a break, you know? I wanna go back, but I can't, even if I climbed back into the freezerbox. Hee… Maybe I'd get hotter though? No, freezers make the opposite of hot. Styoopid..!"

* * *

"Fuckin' Christ… Useless, get her out of here," the chem cook groaned, stepping away and scratching his head.

"Why do I gotta do it?" the other chemist asked, his voice coming from a darker corner of the lab. Erin looked over and saw the bald man had lowered himself into a folding chair that creaked as he moved and was now lifting a tattered magazine from his face and sat up from his reclined position. "And I told you before, it's Eustace." His sigh told of just how many time's he'd repeated those words

"Because I've gotta watch the jet and make sure it doesn't blow us all to the fuckin' moon, genius," the first retorted. "And you'll stop being useless when you don't spend half the day beating it to The Inspector. I swear; she's a comic book character for God's sake."

"Fuck you, I already did my work for the day. And The Inspector's hot; I don't care if she's just ink," Eustace replied, hauling himself out of his chair with a grunt. Compared to Oscar and his co-worker, he was thickly set; too ill-fed to be considered fat, but definitely pre-disposed to stoutness.

"Wait, you've got jets?" Erin asked in confusion, as the heavier man grabbed one of the straps of her armour and hauled her upright. She gasped in excitement. "Oh, can you fly?"

"The hell you talking about?" Eustace grunted, keeping Erin from falling as she slowly mounted the stairs to the surface again. "Jet can't make you fly. Heh, not unless you're talking ultra, but that shit's a bit beyond us…"

"Aww…" Erin pouted. "I wanted to fly away like a birdie… Go someplace the bombs hadn't…" She tailed off, growing silent for a while and watching the little birds peck their way through the walls and fly off into the sun after twirling around her head. "Oh! Hiii Oscar!" She waved to the man behind the counter, who just chuckled gave a lazy, two-fingered wave in return.

"Hey, where the hell do I put her, Os?"

"Fucked if I know. Drop her somewhere she won't make the place look untidy," he replied, already losing interest. "Oh and lady, you forgot your bottle."

"Oh! Rightrightrightright," Erin gabbled, amazed she could just forget something like that and lurching for the counter, gripping onto it as she reached for the fingerprint-smeared glass. After some struggle with the drawstring cords, the bottle vanished into her bag, out of immediate harm's way. "How'd I forget something like that anyway?"

"Maybe next time wait to take your medicine," Oscar counselled with a humourless smirk.

* * *

Eustace's grubby hand re-took Erin's arm and half-lead, half-dragged her to a small backroom, where she was unceremoniously dropped on a stained and filthy couch. Her legs were refusing to co-operate more and more, causing her to stumble over her own feet as she tried to keep up with his pace. "There ya go. Now stay out of trouble until you can walk out the door," he grumbled. Erin grinned and tried to nod, hauling herself more onto the couch, but her head just lolled and rolled on her shoulders, setting the room spinning, as Eustace left. It looked like it had once been a breakroom for pharmacy staff, but now it had been re-purposed into impromptu sleeping and living quarters for the new inhabitants. Sleeping bags were stacked upon piles of flattened cardboard boxes, surrounded by dirty clothes, empty beer bottles and most prevalently, the detritus and paraphernalia of heavy drug users. The whole room, from the kitchenette to the threadbare sofa, radiated an aura of owners that just didn't care. Erin meanwhile, noticed none of this, too busy getting comfortable and struggling to keep her eyes open as a state of half-aware drowsiness slipped over her like a particularly heavy and stifling blanket. She was dimly aware of Eustace complaining to Oscar that he thought they were running a drug store, not a parlour, but she couldn't keep her interest on that for long. Thoughts seemed... Elusive, slipping through her mind like water through a sieve. Time became elastic; minutes stretching into hours, or passing in a slow blink of Erin's eyes, then snapping into focus for a brief few moments. The passage of time was confusing, but tolerable... The dreams however; not so much.

* * *

They started innocently enough. She remembered happier, sunnier days, days before the war, but that had never been. The grass was greener; the sky clearer and the sun brighter; the lemonade in her hand was fizzier and fresher than any she had ever tasted; her parents and little brother were there, laughing and smiling and chattering about... About something – it didn't matter what. Erin relaxed on the soft grass, wearing a light summer dress and letting her smile spread and spread. This was just what she needed, an escape from the horrors around her; a way to forget a world of horrible things... But as her smile and the smiles around her broadened, it all started to fall apart. It began with a siren, tinny and distant, disturbing Erin's doze like an errant mosquito. No-one else seemed to notice it, even as it grew steadily louder and louder and louder, drowning her family's voices, echoing inside her head-! Erin dropped her glass and pressed her hand to her ears, only to find it made no difference to the overwhelming cacophony. She knew the rising and falling tone too. She tried to call to her family, but they couldn't hear her. She grabbed at them, pulling on their arms, trying to physically drag them to the vault with her, but it was like they didn't even notice! Looking around in fact, NO-ONE in the happy little community seemed to pay the sirens a blind bit of attention! Then it came. The flash. The rushing wind. The end of the world. Erin covered her face and threw herself to the ground as hurricane winds ripped trees from the ground; tore tiles and aluminium panelling from houses and scattered cars like leaves, yet she and everyone around her remained still. The ground shook and heaved, rippling like waves on the ocean and then came the fire. In a roiling, tumultuous cloud, the firestorm swept over her, turning Erin's world into a howling sea of flame, whipped high by the winds. But she didn't burn, ice crackling over her vault suit- Vault suit? Somewhere, her dress had become the now familiar, form-fitting garment, complete with her armoured additions, now covered with hoarfrost that protected her from the flames all around. Those around her were not so lucky. Erin heard the scream before she even realised it was her own voice, as flames lapped hungrily over the skin, clothes and hair of her family and neighbours. Horrified beyond belief, Erin shook as dresses and strolling suits burned up; hair was incinerated down to the roots; skin fell away like blazing candle wax. One by one, everyone turned to look at her and intelligence was faded from their eyes, replaced by pain, by anger, by hunger... Erin stumbled to her feet, running from the stationary, watching ghouls, moving with horrifying slowness against the buffeting wind, though the ruin of Sanctuary Hills. Every step of the way, the burning inhabitants turned to watch her and she didn't need to look back to know her family was matching her pace, chasing her, reaching out to drag her back with them. Erin's lungs ached and burned as she ran, out of the neighbourhood, up the hill and towards the vault. The bodies of raiders rested, impaled on the trees, lasers splitting heads and limbs as she passed them. Power armoured soldiers marched past, impassive as living statues. Cheery, burning Vault-Tec employees smiled and waved as she stumbled past. The fingers of the ghoul horde, now thousands and tens of thousands strong, were at her heels as she fled towards the elevator to the vault. Right on the cusp of safety, Erin tripped, stumbling forward, pitching into the empty elevator shaft and down, down, down, screaming with the last of the breath left in her body..! Blackness.

* * *

Erin's head swam as she lay still. Her brain felt like it had been hit with an electric whisk, swimming around like a soup and leaving her unsure of what was real and what was simply imagined. With a pained groan, she opened her eyes, half-expecting to see the massive door to the vault in front of her. Instead, dirty tiles and a much-abused skirting board faded into view. Somewhere during her drug-induced haze, she'd managed to roll halfway off the sofa and it was just starting to sink in just how uncomfortable her position was. Erin patted at the ground, trying to figure out what position her arms were even in, flopping like a fish out of water for a good ten minutes before awareness of her limbs finally entered her addled brain. As she pushed herself painstakingly up on her palms, Erin finally slid completely off the couch, landing with a thud in a tangle of legs that hadn't yet realised the rest of her body needed them. Biting back a curse of pain as a rush of pins and needles stabbed into her legs, Erin turned her head and tapped her Pip-Boy, trying to check just how long she had been dreaming. The green numbers blinked back at her showing it to be a little past five. It couldn't have been much after noon that she had walked through the door, so… Had she really been daytripping for that long?! As she reached for her bag, both to check she hadn't been robbed and to find some water for the horrifically dry mouth the drug had left her with, Erin blinked, spying the mowhawked chem cook from downstairs who's name escaped her. He was slumped on one of the sleeping bags, snoring gently and an empty syringe of med-X loosely resting in his fingers. A sudden, unexpected burning flame of anger sprung to life in Erin's chest, seeing the sleeping drug dealer. Not only had his shitty creation left her with horrible pain all through her limbs and back, but the dreams it had made her suffer through-!

* * *

Erin knew it wasn't especially fair to blame the man, especially as she had made the decision to take the drug in the first place, but that somehow didn't help the fury inside her. Once she'd taken a slug of water from one of the bottles in her bag, Erin marched her way over to the dealer's prone form and clenched her fists, looking down at him. Even as she moved however, her uncharacteristic burst of anger started to ebb away. She clutched at it, refusing to let it go, but the senseless urge to throttle him – to hurt or kill him had vanished as strangely as it had come. Biting back a sound of frustration, directed partly at herself and partly at the world, Erin stooped, snatching a full syringe that lay beside the used one. As far as she was concerned, they owed her at least that much!

As she stowed the painkiller away, Erin's fingers brushed the bottle of daytripper in her bag. She drew it out, glaring at the green glass in the dusty light. Her first instinct was to hurl it against a wall, but the thought of the caps it had cost stopped her arm as she gritted her teeth. Wasting so much money, even if it was in the form of a nightmare-inducing drug, rubbed her the wrong way on many different levels. With a frustrated sigh, she went to put it back in her bag, but the sight of something resting on the breakroom's counter-top stopped her and brought a sly quirk to the corner of her mouth. Fair exchange was no robbery, after all! Erin set the daytripper bottle down and in its place, swiped a brown glass jar with a home-made label reading 'Bufftats'. She'd never heard of it before, but going by the name, it likely was a close cousin to that junkie at the front desk's poison of choice. Taking it with her was a pretty pathetic sort of revenge, but it was something at least. Erin suddenly shook and gripped the counter, slumping as her thoughts finally consciously registered. It had only been for a few moments, but had she really been ready to kill a man, over the results of her own stupid decision? She clapped a hand over her mouth, bile rising in her throat. It had been bad enough exchanging shots with the raiders and seeing what the ghouls did to them, but actively contemplating murder?! Just what the hell was wrong with her? Whether it was the drug, or something Vault-Tec had done, or just the stress of the last few days getting to her, Erin felt sick. With the stolen jar in her hand, she staggered through the back door and out into Cambridge's streets.

* * *

Two streets away, Erin finally pitched over and vomited. Her stomach was empty enough that not much emerged, but she was left retching and dry-heaving afterwards, as she sobbed. Wiping her eyes, Erin staggered a step or two and slumped against the wall, sliding down and looking skyward at the gathering dusk. Her hand ached as the memory of firing her pistol came back and it became all too easy to imagine the crack of the firing pin striking the bullet; the flash of the muzzle; the vicious kick of brass and wood; and the sudden, red splatter of blood, brains and bone. Those instincts, those urges weren't hers and their intrusion into her mind was as horrible as it was unexpected. She wiped her mouth and reached for a water bottle once again to wash the taste out and to slake dull burning in her dry throat. It _could_ have been just the stress getting to her… Or maybe a backlash from bad daytripper? Then again, it could also be her brain slowly starting to break apart like cracking ice. Who knew? Gasping for breath after draining half the bottle, Erin shook her head. Before, she'd just wanted answers, but now… Vault-Tec's offices might give her reasons for her actions, or better yet, a cure. She squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on that. This was Vault-Tec's fault; it had to be. After all, the alternative, that it was her own mind that had felt that bloodthirsty wish, was not something she was ready to contemplate.


End file.
